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Data Center Water Tracker

The water file

Water has replaced electricity as the sharpest local objection to data center development, and the rulemaking has moved faster than the measurement. Congress has generally deferred to state primacy over intrastate water allocation, so the binding rules are being written in state capitols and city halls while twenty-three federal bills sit in committee. The core problem is not that data centers use an extraordinary share of American water. It is that almost nobody is required to report how much they use, from where, or what they discharge.

Updated October 7, 2026 204 measures 218 primary sources 20 feeds polled weekly

Where the water actually goes

17.4 billion gallons
211 billion gallons

U.S. data center water consumption in 2023. The copper bar is direct cooling at the building. The grey bar is water consumed generating the electricity that building runs on. Roughly twelve times more water leaves at the power plant than at the site everyone is arguing about.

17.4Bgallons of water consumed directly by U.S. data centers in 2023, against 211B consumed indirectly at the power plants that run them
97%of water supplied to U.S. data centers comes from public water systems, not private wells
23bills in the 119th Congress touch data center water. One has become law, and it governs only military installations
Jan 1Virginia waterworks must begin reporting data center water sales as a separate category

The states

Fifty states, one taxonomy

Freshwater withdrawal by category, in billion gallons per year, from the U.S. Geological Survey's county-level compilation for 2015, the most recent year covering every state with a single taxonomy. Withdrawal is not consumption: most thermoelectric withdrawal is returned to its source, which is why that category leads in so many states. Fifteen states report irrigation only as a combined total with no golf breakdown, and those are labeled.

Click a state to open its file: the withdrawal ledger, every water measure that binds there, the interstate basin bodies that reach it, and a state agency ledger where a richer one exists. States with nothing located say so.

Figure 1

SOURCERivers, aquifers,public supply97% of data center water arrives through a public systemwithdrawPOWER PLANT211Bgallons consumed a yearevaporated cooling the turbinesthat make the electricityelectricityDATA CENTER17.4Bgallons consumed a yearthe only figure anydisclosure bill collects12x
Water is consumed twice on the way to a server, and the larger draw is the one no rule in this tracker measures. Twelve times more leaves at the power plant than at the building, and that ratio moves with the generation mix: about 2.1 gallons per kilowatt-hour in the hydropower-heavy Pacific Northwest against 0.13 in solar-heavy California. A facility can hold a near-zero water use effectiveness score and still carry a large footprint through its power purchase.

The number that got corrected

49 billion gallons became 25

49 billion gallons → ~25 billion gallons Houston Advanced Research Center
July 2025 to January 21, 2026

HARC's preliminary estimate of 2025 Texas data center water use was 49 billion gallons. Its formal report of January 21, 2026 revised the figure to approximately 25 billion gallons including direct and indirect use. The original number was carried by national and regional outlets; most did not publish the correction. HARC's revised 2030 range is 29 to 161 billion gallons, a spread of 5.5 times, and the variable that decides where in that range Texas lands is cooling architecture adoption.

Houston Advanced Research Center SAVRN, The 49 Billion Gallon Mirage

The tracker

204 measures, 38 states, one federal law

Every instrument located that governs, discloses, restricts or subsidizes data center water use. Federal bills are compiled from the Congressional Research Service report of July 31, 2026. State and local entries are drawn from legislative records, agency regulations, council minutes and local reporting. The regional layer covers interstate compacts and river basin commissions, which regulate withdrawals across state lines and are the least understood instruments in this subject. Each entry states what the instrument actually requires.

Alaska: 0 measuresAlabama: 1 measureArkansas: 3 measuresArizona: 5 measuresCalifornia: 14 measuresColorado: 3 measuresConnecticut: 0 measuresWashington, DC: 0 measuresDelaware: 0 measuresFlorida: 7 measuresGeorgia: 6 measuresHawaii: 0 measuresIowa: 5 measuresIdaho: 1 measureIllinois: 5 measuresIndiana: 2 measuresKansas: 1 measureKentucky: 0 measuresLouisiana: 3 measuresMassachusetts: 2 measuresMaryland: 1 measureMaine: 1 measureMichigan: 7 measuresMinnesota: 7 measuresMissouri: 3 measuresMississippi: 1 measureMontana: 0 measuresNorth Carolina: 3 measuresNorth Dakota: 0 measuresNebraska: 1 measureNew Hampshire: 0 measuresNew Jersey: 14 measuresNew Mexico: 0 measuresNevada: 3 measuresNew York: 2 measuresOhio: 8 measuresOklahoma: 2 measuresOregon: 1 measurePennsylvania: 9 measuresRhode Island: 0 measuresSouth Carolina: 7 measuresSouth Dakota: 1 measureTennessee: 7 measuresTexas: 14 measuresUtah: 2 measuresVirginia: 9 measuresVermont: 0 measuresWashington: 1 measureWisconsin: 5 measuresWest Virginia: 1 measureWyoming: 0 measures
  • Enacted Binding law, regulation or ordinance now in force or with a set effective date.
  • Proposed Live and undecided: introduced, in committee, or awaiting a council vote.
  • Vetoed Passed the legislature and was rejected by the governor.
  • Failed Died in committee, missed a deadline, or was voted down.
  • No measure located Nothing found at state or local level. Absence of a rule, not absence of data centers.
  • Not shaded here Federal bills and the three interstate basin bodies span state lines and are listed in the table rather than colored on the map.

Rules that require a water figure to be published, from monthly utility reporting to annual operator filings. The largest group at every level of government.

State

California

AB 1577

Enacted Sep 21, 2026

Data centers: reporting

Requires data center owners or operators to report location, size, power usage effectiveness and onsite generator fuel use to the California Energy Commission, and to give local agencies expected annual energy use and sound levels when seeking a discretionary permit. The chaptered text contains no water reporting provision.

Governor Newsom approved the bill on September 21, 2026, and it was chaptered as Chapter 434, Statutes of 2026. The tracker already notes that this successor to the vetoed AB 93 lost its water clause; the chaptered text confirms that.

leginfo.legislature.ca.gov

State

California

AB 2619

Enacted Sep 21, 2026

Water resources: data centers

Before applying for an initial city or county business license or permit, a data center owner or operator must give its water supplier, under penalty of perjury, a good faith estimate of expected water use, the water source and projected maximum-day, maximum-month and average-year volumes, and must report the same on the application. At each renewal it must report prior-year total and direct water use by source (potable, nonpotable, recycled) and its cooling system type; urban water suppliers must count data center demand in their annual supply and demand assessments.

Governor Newsom approved the bill on September 21, 2026, and it was chaptered as Chapter 437, Statutes of 2026. The Assembly concurred in Senate amendments 63 to 7 on August 27 and the bill was presented to the Governor on September 4.

leginfo.legislature.ca.gov

State

California

AB 2469

Enacted Sep 21, 2026

Data centers: water use disclosures

Adds Government Code 65964.7: a city or county may not approve a permit or entitlement to build a data center, or expand one in a way that raises maximum peak water use, unless the applicant provides a water supply assessment, projected water use and efficiency measures, and, beginning January 1, 2028, a water scarcity plan with staged reductions for each U.S. Drought Monitor drought level. The applicant must also pay the full cost of any water conveyance, treatment, storage or distribution upgrades the water supplier determines are needed.

Governor Newsom approved the bill on September 21, 2026, and the Secretary of State chaptered it as Chapter 436, Statutes of 2026. It was presented to the Governor on September 15 after the Assembly concurred in Senate amendments 61 to 12 on August 31.

leginfo.legislature.ca.gov

Local

Chicago, Illinois

Energy Benchmarking Ordinance amendment

Passed Sep 23, 2026

Data centers brought into the city's benchmarking ordinance

Removes the data center exemption from the city's Energy Benchmarking Ordinance; the change is intended to provide transparency on data centers' energy efficiency and water usage.

City Council approved the change on Sep 23, 2026. It adds data centers to an existing reporting program and sets no water limit. A separate proposal for a moratorium was introduced the same day.

news.wttw.com

Local

Fairfax and Prince William Counties, Virginia

Utility metering analyses

Enacted 2026

Measured per-building water use in the largest U.S. data center market

Utility-provided analyses report average daily use of roughly 18,000 to 38,000 gallons per day per building, with peak-day demand approaching 88,000 gallons per day, and substantial variability among facilities.

Included because it is measurement rather than mandate, and because it is the best available counterweight to the widely circulated claim that a typical data center consumes millions of gallons a day. Prince William County alone has more than 2,000 acres proposed for 37 data centers totalling 22 to 23 million square feet.

Center for Secure Water, University of Illinois

State

Louisiana

Groundwater registration

Enacted In force

Registration threshold at 50,000 gallons per day

Registration is required only for groundwater use exceeding 50,000 gallons per day.

Included as a floor case. A facility below the threshold, or one drawing from a public water system rather than its own wells, generates no state record at all.

E&E News

State

New Jersey

S3379 / A4096 (P.L.2026, c.75)

Enacted Signed Aug 27, 2026

Semi-annual water and energy reports to the Board of Public Utilities

The owner or operator of a data center in the state must file a water and energy usage report with the Board of Public Utilities and update it semi-annually. The water items are the total water input in cubic meters covering all water that enters the data center, and the source of that water broken out as municipal supply, groundwater or surface water and as potable or reclaimed, with each source given as a percentage of total water usage. A data center holding a state financial incentive must additionally report water usage effectiveness.

Signed by Governor Sherrill on August 27, 2026 as P.L.2026, c.75, sponsored by Senators Ruiz and Mukherji. New Jersey vetoed a comparable bill, S4293, earlier in 2026, so this is the second attempt and the one that became law. Total water input is a withdrawal-basis quantity and does not by itself say how much is evaporated, which is why the source breakdown matters more than the volume. The measure creates the reporting duty; it does not publish a figure, so New Jersey still has no measured data center water volume.

pub.njleg.gov

Local

Newton County, Georgia

Water system stress after Meta buildout

Enacted 2025 to 2026

The most documented local water case in the country

Reported effects rather than a rule. Residents reported dry taps, sediment and damaged appliances following construction of Meta's data center. County water rates are set to rise 33% from 2025 to 2027 against a usual 2% annual increase, and a 2025 report warns the county is on track for a water deficit by 2030.

Meta's facility is reported to consume about 500,000 gallons per day, roughly 10% of the county's total water use. The case became national when a member of Congress displayed a jar of discolored water from near the site at an EPA hearing. Included because it is the single most cited local water case in the country, and because it is a groundwater and construction-impact story rather than a cooling-volume story. The distinction matters: a closed-loop mandate would not have prevented it.

pressdemocrat.com

State

Pennsylvania

SB 146 (Act 21 of 2026)

Enacted Jul 12, 2026

Data center energy and water reporting (Fiscal Code Article XVIII-B)

Each data center with peak demand of 10 MW or more must file an annual report with DEP by July 1, 2027, and every July 1 after, giving prior-year water consumption and maximum day demand by month, water source and whether used for cooling, plus efficiency measures and next-year demand. Failure to report carries a civil penalty of $10,000 per day, and DEP must publish aggregated trends.

The Fiscal Code bill, part of the state budget, was approved by Governor Shapiro on July 12, 2026, as Act 21 of 2026. It predates the September 9 refresh but was not in the tracker, which lists only proposed Pennsylvania reporting bills such as HB 2150.

palegis.us

Local

Saginaw, Michigan

Data center zoning ordinance

Adopted Sep 28, 2026

Special land use rules with water use reporting

Makes data centers a special land use in the light and general industrial districts, subject to Planning Commission approval, and requires developers to submit reports on water use, energy demand, noise and other impacts.

The City Council voted 8 to 0 on Sep 28, 2026, with one member absent; the ordinance takes effect Oct 9. The city's data center moratorium stays in place through the end of 2026. No water volume limit was reported.

wsgw.com

State

South Dakota

SB 135

Enacted Mar 30, 2026

Data Center Bill of Rights for Citizens

Requires full transparency of data center water usage, requires operators to work with water service providers so that their use is compatible with local supply, and gives counties and municipalities authority to decide whether a data center is welcome.

Signed by Governor Rhoden. The legislature set limits on data centers while rejecting a moratorium. Also requires data centers to cover their own electricity costs.

LegiScan

Regional

Susquehanna River Basin: NY, PA, MD

SRBC consumptive use approval

Enacted In force

20,000 gallons per day consumptive use threshold

Any data center consumptively using 20,000 gallons per day or more on a 30-day average requires Commission approval, including when the water comes from a public water supply, stormwater, wastewater or recycled sources. These are issued as Approval by Rule type (e), a general permit process in place since 2007.

As of early 2026 the Commission had issued only one permit for a hyperscale data center in the basin, for Amazon Web Services in Salem Township, Pennsylvania. The Commission notes that developers increasingly take water from existing public supplies, which avoids a withdrawal approval because the volume is already counted under the public supplier's own approval. The Commission also approved Constellation Energy withdrawals tied to restarting Three Mile Island to serve data center load.

srbc.gov

State

Texas

2027 State Water Plan and annual water use survey

Enacted Jul 23, 2026

A mandatory survey that 83 percent of data centers ignored

Industries in Texas, data centers included, are required to complete an annual water use survey and submit it to the Texas Water Development Board. The board adopted its initial 2027 State Water Plan on July 23, 2026.

The board surveyed 341 data centers for 2025 and 83 percent did not respond. Among the surveys that were returned, surface water accounted for nearly 90 percent of the water reported, groundwater for 8 percent, and 2 percent came from an unknown source. The 97-page initial plan uses the phrase data centers twice and AI facilities once, and the board attributed the thin treatment to limited data. The duty to report exists in law and has not produced a state total.

communityimpact.com

State

Texas

Governor's letter to TWDB

Enacted Sep 14, 2026

Enforce water use survey reporting against data centers

Directs the Texas Water Development Board to compel major water users, including data centers, to complete the water use survey required by Texas Water Code 16.012(m), refer violations to county or district attorneys and notify TCEQ, since nonfilers are ineligible for Chapter 11 water permits. TWDB must also seek water consumption, supply source and cooling technology data through the ERCOT data center audit and report its enforcement progress to the Governor within 30 days.

Governor Abbott sent the letter to TWDB Chairwoman L'Oreal Stepney and Executive Administrator Bryan McMath on September 14, 2026. Calendar Year 2025 survey responses were due March 1, 2026; no TWDB enforcement action had been published as of September 23.

gov.texas.gov

State

Texas

Governor's directive to PUCT and ERCOT

Enacted Aug 3, 2026

Data center audit covering water use and cooling

Directs the PUCT and ERCOT to audit every data center in ERCOT's interconnection process before more can advance, collecting projected water consumption, water sources, whether facilities bring and reuse their own water, and whether cooling is air-cooled, closed-loop or another water-efficient system. Projects that fail to complete the audit are to be denied interconnection.

Governor Abbott issued the directive on August 3, 2026, citing data centers that did not answer the PUC's water and power survey under the General Appropriations Act. It predates the September 9 refresh but was not in the tracker; the September 14 and 21 letters build on it.

gov.texas.gov

State

Texas

Attorney General investigation

Investigation launched Sep 24, 2026

Investigation of data centers that skipped the TWDB water use survey

The Office of the Attorney General is investigating Texas data center developments that have not responded to the Texas Water Development Board's water use survey, which state law requires, and demands full survey responses from every data center in the state.

Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the investigation on Sep 24, 2026, ten days after the Governor's letter directing TWDB to enforce the survey, saying his office was investigating hundreds of developments in counties including Harris, Travis, Dallas, Tarrant and Bexar. The release names no company, deadline or penalty.

texasattorneygeneral.gov

Federal

United States

P.L. 119-60 §1531

Enacted Dec 18, 2025

National Defense Authorization Act for FY2026

Expands the Department of Defense High Performance Computing Roadmap to estimate the additional electricity and water usage, and the anticipated effects on surrounding communities, from data centers built or expanded on military installations.

The only federal data center water provision enacted to date. It reaches DOD installations only, and the estimates are not required if producing them would delay the roadmap's triennial update.

U.S. Congress

State

Utah

H.B. 76

Enacted Effective May 6, 2026

Data Center Water Transparency Amendments

A large data center, defined as a facility withdrawing 75 acre-feet a year or more across one or more buildings totalling 10,000 square feet or more, must notify its water provider of anticipated water consumption between 90 and 360 days before construction begins, and report to the Division of Water Rights its estimated annual withdrawal, discharge treatment plans, any discharge temperature adjustment and any planned water reuse. Operating facilities report annually by July 1, and the division publishes aggregated, anonymized data by September 1. The state engineer may fine a non-reporting operator up to $100 a day.

Carried by Representative Jill Koford, enacted in the 2026 general session and effective May 6, 2026. It supersedes the 2024 interim draft that used a 50,000 square foot trigger alone, enacts Utah Code 73-5-8.3, and adds a reporting failure to the state engineer enforcement powers in 73-2-25. Individual facility reports are protected records, so what the public sees is a state aggregate rather than a facility figure.

Utah Legislature

State

Virginia

Waterworks regulations

Enacted Effective Jan 1, 2027

Data center water sales reporting category

Waterworks operators must categorize monthly sales reporting data, breaking out usage by data centers holding state air permits separately from domestic, industrial and commercial, and other uncategorized purposes.

A regulation rather than a statute, and the first in the country to make data center water a distinct line in routine utility reporting. It reaches only facilities that already hold a state air permit, so smaller sites remain invisible.

VPM

State

Virginia

HB 496

Enacted Apr 13, 2026

Certain data from water users; water use consumption for domestic, etc., purposes, data centers.

As enacted (2026 Acts ch. 623, effective January 1, 2027), requires water users that register withdrawals with the State Water Control Board and supply water to others offsite to report, on their regular schedule, the monthly volume of potable water and, separately, reclaimed water provided to data centers holding a DEQ air permit, plus domestic and commercial/industrial categories where billing systems allow. Identical to SB 553.

HB 496. Last official action Apr 13, 2026: Approved by Governor, Chapter 623 (effective 1/1/2027); Acts of Assembly Chapter text (CHAP0623). Identical to SB 553.

lis.virginia.gov

State

Georgia

SB 421

Proposed 2026 session

Ban on local nondisclosure agreements covering water use

Would prohibit local governments from signing nondisclosure agreements with data center operators that conceal energy and water usage information.

Attacks the mechanism rather than the metric. The American Water Works Association has reported that utilities are sometimes barred from releasing consumption data because of these agreements.

MultiState

State

Illinois

POWER Act

Proposed Feb 11, 2026

Water withdrawal and discharge disclosure with IEPA permitting

Would require data centers to disclose total water use including both the amount drawn in and the volume discharged, secure water permits from the Illinois EPA, and meet water efficiency requirements enforced by the agency.

One of the few proposals that asks for the discharge figure as well as the intake figure. The difference between the two is consumption, which is the quantity that actually matters and the one almost no jurisdiction currently collects.

Shaw Local News Network

State

Michigan

SB 762

Proposed 2026 session

Annual utility reporting of data center water use

Annual reports to the Public Service Commission detailing total water used by each data center in a utility's service area.

Places the reporting duty on the utility rather than the operator, which routes around operator nondisclosure agreements.

MultiState

State

Michigan

HB 6265

Proposed Aug 27, 2026

Businesses: other; water and electricity usage reporting requirements for data centers; provide for. Creates new act.

As introduced, would require the owner or operator of any data center in Michigan to file an annual report with the Michigan Public Service Commission by March 1 each year beginning March 1, 2028, stating total water consumption, the sources of that water, total electricity consumption, and the renewable share of electricity for the prior calendar year. Violations carry a civil fine of up to $10,000 per day.

HB 6265. Last official action Aug 27, 2026: Bill electronically reproduced 08/26/2026 (introduced by Rep. Angela Witwer and referred to Committee on Government Operations 8/26/2026). Its official bill page lists no tie-bar, unlike the related HB 6138.

legislature.mi.gov

State

Michigan

SB 1046

Proposed Jun 18, 2026

Consumptive-use permits; public reporting of data center water use

Would require public water supplies to submit each data center's annual water use to EGLE by June 1, 2027, with the department publishing the totals by service area by each July 1, and would add data center wastewater effluent reporting starting in 2028. It amends the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act's water withdrawal provisions.

Senator Rosemary Bayer introduced the bill on June 18, 2026, and it was referred to the Senate Energy and Environment Committee. A co-sponsor was added September 10, 2026.

legislature.mi.gov

State

New Jersey

A 5396

Proposed Sep 10, 2026

Requires data centers to submit water supply emergency contingency plan to DEP.

As introduced, would require each owner or operator of a data center with a peak electrical load of at least 25 MW to submit, within 12 months of enactment, a water supply emergency contingency plan for droughts, shortages, and other water supply disruptions to DEP and the host municipality, covering alternative water sources, water-efficient and closed-loop cooling, and rainwater capture. DEP would have to publish each plan on its website within 180 days of receipt.

A 5396. Last official action Sep 10, 2026: Introduced, Referred to Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee.

njleg.state.nj.us

State

New Jersey

A 5397

Proposed Sep 10, 2026

Requires data centers to submit construction phase water usage plan to DEP.

As introduced, would require an owner or operator of a data center with a peak electrical load of at least 25 MW that applies for local development approval to submit at the same time a construction phase water usage plan to DEP and the municipality, giving water sources, estimated total consumption and withdrawal, construction duration, and impacts on local drinking water supply and quality. DEP may comment within 60 days and must publish the plan and its comments within 180 days.

A 5397. Last official action Sep 10, 2026: Introduced, Referred to Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee.

njleg.state.nj.us

State

New Jersey

A4696

Proposed Mar 16, 2026

Requires owner or operator of data center to submit water and energy usage report to BPU.

As introduced, would require the owner or operator of any data center in New Jersey to submit a quarterly water and energy usage report to BPU, starting within six months of enactment (three months for data centers operating at least a year), including total water input in cubic meters, water sources and potable or reclaimed status, and water usage effectiveness. BPU would publish the reports within 30 days, in coordination with DEP.

A4696. Last official action Mar 16, 2026: Introduced, Referred to Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee. Largely overlaps the semiannual reporting law enacted as P.L.2026, c.75 (S3379).

njleg.state.nj.us

State

New Jersey

S2274

Proposed Jan 13, 2026

Requires owner or operator of data center to submit water and energy usage report to BPU.

As introduced, would require the owner or operator of any data center in New Jersey to submit a quarterly water and energy usage report to BPU (first report within six months of enactment, or three months for data centers operating at least a year), including total water input, water sources and potable or reclaimed status, and water usage effectiveness, with BPU publishing the data within 30 days.

S2274. Last official action Jan 13, 2026: Introduced in the Senate, Referred to Senate Environment and Energy Committee. Largely overlaps the semiannual reporting law enacted as P.L.2026, c.75 (S3379).

njleg.state.nj.us

State

Ohio

HB 784

Proposed Mar 25, 2026

Require data center water consumption reports

As introduced, requires any data center that withdraws waters of the state in any amount to measure its water use under rules of the ODNR Division of Water Resources chief, file monthly reports (total monthly use, maximum daily use, sources, cooling vs. other use) and an annual report by February 1 with total yearly use and efficiency measures. It also bars data centers from nondisclosure agreements that stop a political subdivision from commenting on the data center's water use, with a civil fine of up to $1,000 and such agreements void.

HB 784. Last official action Mar 25, 2026: Referred to committee: House Energy.

legislature.ohio.gov

State

Pennsylvania

HB 2150

Proposed Apr 23, 2026

An Act providing for annual reporting of energy consumption and water consumption by data centers; and imposing a penalty.

As passed by the House (PN 3029), would require each data center with peak electric demand of 10 MW or more to submit an annual report to DEP by July 1, 2027 and each July 1 after, including total water consumption in gallons with maximum day demand by month, water source, and whether the water was for cooling, plus energy use and efficiency measures. DEP, with the PUC, would publish an annual trends report; noncompliance carries a $10,000 per day civil penalty.

HB 2150. Last official action Apr 23, 2026: In the Senate: Referred to Environmental Resources and Energy.

palegis.us

State

Pennsylvania

HB2515

Proposed May 13, 2026

Providing for commercial data center transparency regarding energy use, water use and noise pollution; imposing duties on the Department of Environmental

As introduced, would require applicants for state permits for a commercial data center project (peak demand of 25 MW or more) to identify the application as a data center project, and, where water use exceeds 100,000 gallons per day or consumptive use is 20,000 gallons per day or more, to submit to DEP within five business days the proposed maximum daily water use, sources, and reuse measures, plus whether river basin commission review is required. DEP would post the submission and a plain-language summary within 10 business days and take public comment for at least 90 days.

HB2515. Last official action May 13, 2026: Referred to Energy.

palegis.us

Federal

United States

S. 4784 §1632

Proposed Jul 27, 2026

National Defense Authorization Act for FY2027

Broadens the DOD roadmap water estimates to cover data centers supporting military operations and those still to be built or expanded, and raises the update frequency from triennial to annual.

Motion to proceed to consideration made in the Senate July 27, 2026. Amends the FY2026 provision enacted as P.L. 119-60 §1531.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 9825

Proposed Jul 22, 2026

Data Center Water and Energy Transparency Act of 2026

Operators of data centers with peak demand of 25 MW or more would file an annual state report giving total water use and water source for each month, annual average PUE and WUE, and five-year projected water use with reduction proposals.

New or expanded facilities would report five-year projections before operation. Where a state lacks authority to collect the information, reporting runs to DOE and EPA instead. Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

S. 4213

Proposed Mar 25, 2026

Data Center Water and Energy Transparency Act of 2026

Senate companion to H.R. 9825. Annual state reporting of monthly water use and source, average PUE and WUE, and five-year projections, for operators at 25 MW peak demand or above.

Referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Names EPA, DOE and the Department of Agriculture as recipients of operator reports where state authority is absent.

GovTrack

Federal

United States

H.R. 6984

Proposed Jan 8, 2026

Data Center Transparency Act

EPA would report to Congress and publish, within six months of enactment and every three months after, the total water consumed by U.S. data centers, how much they reuse, and their effect on local water systems.

The local-effects reporting is unusually specific: potable water availability, whether the facility increased demand on local utilities, service disruptions for other customers, changes in residential water rates, and the type and amount of Clean Water Act pollutants discharged.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

S. 3852

Proposed Feb 11, 2026

GRID Act

DOE would set requirements for data centers to publish estimated utility usage, and both operators and utilities would publicly disclose any transaction or agreement between them.

Defines “utility” to include public water systems under the Safe Drinking Water Act and treatment works under the Clean Water Act, which brings water contracts inside the disclosure duty. Aimed at the nondisclosure agreements that keep municipal water deals private.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

S. 5054

Proposed Jul 21, 2026

Data Center Tax Accountability

Would exempt AI data centers from bonus depreciation and require operators to submit information on electricity and water use.

Referred to the Senate Committee on Finance. Ties the water reporting duty to a tax consequence rather than an environmental permit.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 8488

Proposed Apr 23, 2026

AI Data Center Site Selection Transparency Act of 2026

Not later than 180 days before taking a definitive step to establish an AI-focused data center, a covered entity would disclose to every relevant local elected official and to the public, in a press release, the site location and the estimated resources needed and estimated environmental impact of the facility. That impact analysis must be conducted by an independent third party funded by the developer. The bill defines environmental AI impact to include effects on water quality, and it limits non-disclosure agreements, barring them entirely with a government entity or over public resources.

Introduced by Representative McIver with eight cosponsors and referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The bill defines an AI-focused data center partly by whether it requires electrical load, cooling capacity or water usage materially attributable to artificial intelligence operations. A violation would be treated as an unfair or deceptive act under the Federal Trade Commission Act. What it produces is an estimate published before construction, not metered use after it.

govinfo.gov

Federal

United States

H.R. 10005

Proposed Introduced Jul 30, 2026

Data Center Resource Disclosure Act

The Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information would conduct an annual survey asking the operator of each U.S. data center to report, on a voluntary basis, its energy consumption and its water consumption for the preceding one-year period, publish the results on the NTIA website as an interactive map, identify by name each data center that did not provide complete information, and report to Congress with recommendations on data center regulation.

Introduced by Representative Scholten with Representatives Subramanyam and Grijalva and referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. Reporting is voluntary, so the bill produces a survey rather than a register, and its enforcement mechanism is publication of who declined to answer. Texas already runs a mandatory survey that 83 percent of data centers ignored, which is the reference case for what a voluntary federal survey is likely to return.

govinfo.gov

Federal

United States

H.R. 10139

Proposed Aug 24, 2026

Ratepayer Bill of Rights Act of 2026

Covers data centers with at least 50 MW peak demand or 100,000 gallons per day of water withdrawal. Requires disclosure of projected and actual water use, sources and wastewater discharge before operations and every three months, an independent assessment that enough water remains for households and agriculture before a final water-service commitment, payment of all project-driven water costs, no priority over households in a water emergency, and an independent assessment before drawing from an overdrawn aquifer.

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) introduced the bill on Aug 24, 2026; it was referred to the Energy and Commerce and Education and Workforce committees. FERC, DOE, EPA and Labor would each issue rules within their jurisdictions.

govinfo.gov

Federal

United States

H.R. 9019

Proposed May 22, 2026

Public Oversight of Water and Energy Reporting Act

Would direct the Secretary of Energy, with EPA, to report to Congress two years after enactment and annually after on the electricity and water used by covered data centers, including the water each receives from a public water system.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) introduced the bill on May 22, 2026 and it was referred to the Energy and Commerce Committee. It places no reporting duty directly on operators; the Department of Energy compiles the figures.

govinfo.gov

State

California

AB 93

Vetoed Oct 11, 2025

Data center water use reporting to local suppliers

Would have required operators to report estimated water use to the local water supplier before applying for a business license, and to report actual use annually on license renewal.

Authored by Assemblymember Diane Papan. Passed both chambers and was vetoed by Governor Newsom, who objected that rigid reporting requirements could harm the industry.

E&E News

State

New Jersey

S4293

Vetoed 2026

Water and energy usage reporting to the Board of Public Utilities

Would have required operators to submit water and energy usage reports, including the source of the water, to the Board of Public Utilities.

Passed both chambers and was vetoed by Governor Murphy, who suggested anonymizing the data, extending the timeline and protecting proprietary information.

E&E News

Local

Pulaski County, Arkansas

Data center permitting ordinance

Vetoed Sep 25, 2026

Permit rules covering water use, vetoed by the county judge

Would have required large data centers to obtain a county permit by submitting detailed information addressing noise, emergency response, traffic, water use and power demand, with a new review for any substantial expansion.

The Quorum Court approved the ordinance 11 to 4 on Sep 22, 2026, and County Judge Barry Hyde vetoed it on Sep 25. A three-fifths majority of the Quorum Court can override the veto. It set no water or power cap.

arkansasonline.com

State

Arkansas

SB 10

Failed May 5, 2025

TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS DATA CENTERS ACT OF 2023; AND TO REGULATE THE IMPACT ON WATER USAGE AND THE ELECTRIC GRID BY BLOCKCHAIN NETWORKS AND DIGITAL ASSET MINING.

As introduced, would have required the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission to monitor the water use of blockchain networks and digital asset mining and allowed it to act under Ark. Code 15-22-204 against operations whose excessive water use threatens critical groundwater supplies (and the PSC to halt power for grid threats). It does not address data centers generally.

SB 10. Last official action May 5, 2025: Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. The bill targets blockchain and digital asset mining operations, not data centers generally.

arkleg.state.ar.us

State

Iowa

HF 2447

Renumbered as HF 2690 Feb 23, 2026

Quarterly water use reporting to Iowa DNR

Quarterly water usage reports submitted to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

The House committee approved the bill and renumbered it as HF 2690 on Feb 23, 2026; HF 2690, listed separately, was not taken up before sine die. Quarterly cadence is more frequent than most state proposals, which default to annual.

legis.iowa.gov

State

Iowa

HF 2690

Failed Mar 12, 2026

A bill for an act relating to water and energy use for data centers, including reporting and tariff requirements, and including effective date provisions.

As introduced (committee successor to HF 2447), requires every Iowa data center owner or operator to file quarterly water usage reports with the Department of Natural Resources (total water input by function, sources, potable vs. reclaimed, withdrawal permit numbers, and water usage effectiveness), with DNR posting them online within 30 days. It also requires parallel energy reports and a separate Utilities Commission tariff class for data centers.

HF 2690. Last official action Mar 12, 2026: Amendments H-8212, H-8213 and H-8214 filed (H.J. 668); not taken up before sine die May 3, 2026. Committee successor to HF 2447.

legis.iowa.gov

State

Louisiana

HB 1206

Failed Apr 28, 2026

WATER/DRINKING WATER: Provides relative to permitting and reporting of water usage at data centers

As introduced, would require a permit from the Department of Conservation and Energy for any data center (designed load of 100 MW or more) with proposed consumptive use over 100 million gallons per year, with a parish notice and public hearing before issuance, and quarterly water usage reports (total input, sources, water usage effectiveness) that the department would publish within 30 days. The committee substitute adopted April 28, 2026 would instead bar any such data center from operating without a water use permit, with rules due by August 31, 2027.

HB 1206. Last official action Apr 28, 2026: House Committee on Natural Resources and Environment adopted substitute amendment 11-0, then final action: Defer Voluntary (11-0).

legis.la.gov

State

New Jersey

S 4827

Failed Nov 6, 2025

Requires data center owners and operators to submit semi-annual water and energy usage reports to BPU.

As introduced (221st Legislature), would have required every data center owner or operator to file semi-annual water and energy usage reports with the Board of Public Utilities, including total water input in cubic meters and the source (municipal, groundwater, surface; potable or reclaimed), plus energy use and on-site power data.

S 4827. Last official action Nov 6, 2025: Introduced in the Senate, Referred to Senate Environment and Energy Committee; no further action before the 2024-2025 session ended. Prior-session version of S3379, enacted as P.L.2026, c.75.

njleg.state.nj.us

State

New Jersey

A 5548

Failed Jun 30, 2025

Requires owner or operator of data center to submit water and energy usage report to BPU.

As introduced (221st Legislature), would have required data center owners or operators to file annual water and energy usage reports with the Board of Public Utilities, including total water input and water source. It was substituted on the floor by identical S4293, which the Governor conditionally vetoed on October 20, 2025.

A 5548. Last official action Jun 30, 2025: Substituted by S4293 (2R). Substituted on the floor by identical S4293, which the Governor conditionally vetoed.

njleg.state.nj.us

State

Oklahoma

HB 3394

Failed Feb 12, 2026

Hyperscale data centers; Oklahoma Hyperscale Data Center Directory Act; Oklahoma Corporation Commission; directory; electrical utilities; water providers

As introduced (Oklahoma Hyperscale Data Center Directory Act), requires water providers serving hyperscale data centers (50,000 sq ft and 10,000 MWh/yr or more) to report each facility's annual water use in gallons and primary source category to the Corporation Commission by April 1, alongside electric utility reports. The Commission would publish an annual public directory with each facility's water use and source (municipal, groundwater with aquifer, surface, reclaimed).

HB 3394. Last official action Feb 12, 2026: Withdrawn from Rules; referred to Energy and Natural Resources Oversight and to Energy; no further action before sine die May 14, 2026.

oklegislature.gov

State

South Carolina

S0724

Failed Jan 13, 2026

Commercial Data Center Water Usage Report

As introduced, requires commercial data centers with peak demand of 100 MW or more that use 3 million gallons or more of water per month to report to the Department of Environmental Services by January 31 each year the prior year's water use by source and the anticipated use for the current year. The department may audit, fine up to $10,000 per day for late reports, and levy a $10,000 penalty for false information.

S0724. Last official action Jan 13, 2026: Introduced and read first time; referred to Senate Committee on Judiciary; regular session adjourned sine die May 14, 2026.

scstatehouse.gov

State

Tennessee

SB 2112

Failed Mar 24, 2026

Utilities, Utility Districts - As introduced, requires certain data centers to register with the department of revenue; requires fuel suppliers

As introduced, from January 1, 2027 bars operating a data center over 20 MW in Tennessee unless it is registered with the Department of Revenue, listing its water and electric utilities and backup fuel suppliers. Those utilities and suppliers must report the water, electricity and fuel delivered within 30 days of each billing cycle, and the department must publish monthly per-facility reports; unregistered operators face up to $1,000 per day, capped at $25,000.

SB 2112. Last official action Mar 24, 2026: Assigned to General Subcommittee of Senate State and Local Government Committee; House companion HB 2456 failed in Business and Utilities Subcommittee 3/18/2026 (2-5); 114th General Assembly adjourned sine die April 23, 2026.

wapp.capitol.tn.gov

State

Tennessee

SB 1600

Failed Jan 13, 2026

Utilities, Utility Districts - As introduced, requires certain data centers to register with the Tennessee public utilities commission; requires electric

As introduced, from January 1, 2027 would have barred operating a data center over 20 MW unless registered with the Tennessee Public Utility Commission, and required its water and electric utilities to report deliveries within 30 days of each billing cycle plus 12 months of rates, with monthly public reports by the commission's executive director. It was withdrawn the day it was introduced.

SB 1600. Last official action Jan 13, 2026: Withdrawn (same day as Introduced, Passed on First Consideration). Superseded by SB 2112.

wapp.capitol.tn.gov

State

Virginia

HB 589

Failed Feb 18, 2026

Data centers; certain data from water users, water use consumption.

As introduced, would have required any water user registered with the State Water Control Board that supplies a data center to report monthly, or as often as practicable, the total water volume provided to that data center, including the reclaimed portion.

HB 589. Last official action Feb 18, 2026: Left in Committee Agriculture Chesapeake and Natural Resources (subcommittee recommended laying on the table 7-3 on 2/11/2026).

lis.virginia.gov

State

West Virginia

HB 5590

Failed Feb 16, 2026

Create a limited and predictable water-quantity review framework for High Impact Data Centers (HIDCs) in West Virginia.

As introduced, requires certified high impact data centers to give public notice of anticipated water use before construction and to submit projected maximum daily and monthly withdrawals to the Department of Environmental Protection before certification; DEP may condition or deny withdrawals only if they would reduce supply below existing lawful demands. Data centers that withdraw water must report actual annual withdrawals versus projections, and the bill states it creates no new permitting program.

HB 5590. Last official action Feb 16, 2026: To House Energy and Public Works; 2026 regular session adjourned sine die March 14, 2026.

wvlegislature.gov

State

Wisconsin

AB722

Failed Mar 23, 2026

Large energy customer fees; electric utility very large customer class; a renewable resource tariff; building requirements for data centers

As introduced, would require each city, village, town, or county to have data center owners or operators record and report actual water usage within one year of operation and annually after, with the local government posting the figure online or by class 1 notice. It would also require a water utility to notify the Public Service Commission when a new or expanding customer would account for 25 percent of the utility's total water usage.

AB722. Failed to pass pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 1 on Mar 23, 2026; Representative Johnson was added as a coauthor on Apr 6, 2026, after the bill had failed. Water is two sections of a bill that is otherwise about electricity tariffs.

docs.legis.wisconsin.gov

State

Wisconsin

SB 729

Failed Mar 23, 2026

Large energy customer fees; very large customer class; building requirements

No requirement took effect.

The official history records the bill as failing to pass pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 1 on March 23, 2026, the same outcome the tracker already shows for its Assembly companion AB 722. This corrects a stale status and did not occur after September 9.

docs.legis.wisconsin.gov

Rules that specify the architecture rather than the volume, from San Angelo's fill cap and separate meter to South Carolina's proposed zero net withdrawal standard.

Local

Colleton County, South Carolina

Digital Infrastructure Overlay ordinances

Adopted Sep 14, 2026

Closed-loop or air cooling required in a new data center overlay

Creates a Digital Infrastructure Overlay district for data centers and requires data centers in it to use closed-loop water or air-cooled cooling systems.

County Council approved the ordinances unanimously at a special meeting on Sep 14, 2026. The same action repealed the county's July data center moratorium west of Interstate 95 and in industrial zones. The ordinance sets a cooling architecture and no gallon limit.

postandcourier.com

Local

Columbia County, Georgia

Google development covenant

Enacted Jul 25, 2026

Closed loop required, no wells, water supply protections

Google data centers at White Oak Technology Park between Appling and Harlem must operate as closed-loop systems that recycle cooling water rather than continuously drawing new water. The covenant also bars wells, sets decibel limits and lighting standards, requires minimal footprint and visibility, protects the local water supply, and requires an end-of-useful-life strategy.

Announced as a partnership between Columbia County, Google and Georgia Power, and described by the county as among the most restrictive data center covenants in the country. Google committed to cover 100% of the power costs associated with the development. A negotiated covenant is not an ordinance: it binds this developer at this site.

wrdw.com

Local

Fort Worth, Texas

Installation Policy and Design Criteria for Water, Wastewater and Reclaimed Water

Adopted Aug 11, 2026

Closed-loop cooling required for new data centers on city water

Requires all new data centers in the Fort Worth Water Utility's service area to use closed-loop cooling systems and to obtain wastewater pretreatment permits as Non-Significant Industrial Users.

City Council adopted the updated Installation Policy and Design Criteria on Aug 11, 2026, the same night it set aside a data center zoning ordinance with a similar cooling rule and started a moratorium process. The requirement comes through the water utility's design standards rather than zoning.

fortworthtexas.gov

State

Oklahoma

SB 259

Enacted Approved May 20, 2026

Groundwater Modernization Act

Data centers are barred from using groundwater in open-air evaporative cooling systems, or in any other system that consumes groundwater through evaporation without recirculation. To obtain a groundwater permit a data center must demonstrate low-consumptive cooling technology such as a closed loop or dielectric immersion system. Water permit holders file annual water use reports with the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, which is directed to write rules for reviewing those reports, investigating waste complaints and penalizing overuse.

Authored by Senator Brent Howard with Representative Carl Newton as principal House author, approved by the Governor on May 20, 2026 and effective November 1, 2026. Oklahoma pairs a cooling technology condition with a reporting duty in a single instrument, which is rarer than either alone. It matters here because the state's largest disclosed data center figures came from utility billing records rather than state permits: Oklahoma data centers have generally needed no state water permit at all.

okhouse.gov

Local

Perryville, Missouri

Data center ordinance, third revision

Adopted as Ordinance No. 6894 Sep 1, 2026

Fifty thousand gallons a day, closed loop, and no wells

Caps water use at 50,000 gallons per day on a 30-day average, requires closed-loop cooling only, and prohibits groundwater wells and once-through cooling. It also requires a public hearing before a license may be issued, a 500-foot separation from homes, childcare facilities and work centers for people with developmental disabilities, environmental and noise impact assessments, a statement of expected utility demands, and proof that electrical power has been secured.

The Board of Aldermen passed Bill No. 6682 on final passage 6 to 0 on Sep 1, 2026, and it became Ordinance No. 6894, amending Chapter 5.47 (Data Centers). Perryville adopted a first data center ordinance in February 2026 and a second version after it, then reopened the rules following public objections. The daily cap is a permit limit rather than a measured volume, and it is recorded here as a rule and not as Missouri water use.

cityofperryville.com

Local

San Angelo, Texas

Data center water ordinance

Enacted Jun 16, 2026

Closed-loop mandate with a per-square-foot fill cap

Requires any data center to use a closed-loop cooling system, limits the initial water fill to no more than 8 gallons per square foot of gross building area, requires cooling water to be metered separately from other water use, and requires any approved or emergency exceedance to be reported in writing to the City Council within five business days.

The most precisely drafted local water ordinance located to date. It regulates the three things that actually determine outcomes: the architecture, the fill volume, and the meter. Most ordinances regulate only the first.

San Angelo LIVE

Local

Tucson, Arizona

Large-scale data center standards

Enacted Aug 6, 2026

No potable water for cooling, plus large-volume user compliance

Adopted 6-1. Applicants using Tucson Water must comply with the Large Quantity Water User Ordinance and demonstrate adequate water supply; applicants not covered by that ordinance may use no potable water for cooling. Council Member Schubert's amendments add one-year and two-year reviews of the ordinance.

Passed after the Council had already denied city water service to the Project Blue campus. Bobcat Tucson Water LLC subsequently applied for two commercial wells on Project Blue's behalf, approved under three existing legal groundwater rights agreements, which is how a municipal water denial gets routed around.

news.azpm.org

Local

Fort Worth, Texas

Data center zoning ordinance

Withdrawn; moratorium process started Aug 11, 2026

Proposed closed-loop cooling requirement

Would require data centers to be equipped with closed-loop cooling systems that recycle water and reduce evaporative loss, as part of a first-of-its-kind zoning and development ordinance for the city.

On Aug 11, 2026 the City Council pulled the staff-drafted data center zoning and development rules from its agenda after the Zoning Commission voted 7 to 4 to deny them in July, and instead voted unanimously to start a 90-day moratorium process. Staff will study data center noise, impacts on local water supplies and long-term water availability. The closed-loop requirement in this zoning draft was not adopted; the same night the Council adopted a separate water utility policy that does require closed-loop cooling for new data centers on city water, listed as its own entry.

Fort Worth Report

Local

Harmony, Minnesota

Draft data center ordinance (sixth draft)

Proposed Sep 16, 2026

Closed-loop cooling and a monthly water cap

Would require closed-loop cooling, cap cooling water at 60,000 gallons per month unless the city grants special approval, limit water use to startup and maintenance, and bar nondisclosure agreements.

The combined City Council, EDA and Planning and Zoning group reviewed the sixth draft on Sep 16, 2026 without formal action; a Planning and Zoning public hearing is set for Oct 14.

kttc.com

Local

Kirksville, Missouri

Chapter 44 zoning code amendments

Recommended by Planning and Zoning Sep 16, 2026

Closed-loop cooling only, and no well or surface water

Would permit only closed-loop or comparably water-efficient cooling for data centers and bar water from on-site wells or any surface source, among siting, generator and noise standards.

The Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously on Sep 16, 2026 to recommend the amendments to the City Council after nearly three hours of public testimony, in which water and environmental risk drew the most criticism. The Council has not acted.

kirksvilledailyexpress.com

Local

Lubbock, Texas

Proposed development code amendments

Proposed Sep 10, 2026

Large data center water and cooling rules

Would require closed-loop, air or dry cooling or similar technology that minimizes continuous water use, and a water reservation fee for developers needing 100,000 gallons per day or more.

The Planning and Zoning Commission held a special meeting on Sep 10, 2026 on staff-drafted rules after City Council passed a resolution earlier that week saying it would not consider large-scale data centers until regulations are adopted; a work session is set for Oct 1 and a commission vote for Nov 5.

kedt.org

Local

Memphis, Tennessee

Ordinance No. 5986

Pending second reading Sep 15, 2026

Closed-loop cooling and no major local withdrawals for cooling

Would require all new data centers to use closed-loop cooling, prohibit once-through and routine evaporative cooling, bar withdrawals of local water for routine cooling where they amount to a Major Water Withdrawal, and bar new private wells built mainly to supply cooling.

Sponsored by Councilman Jeff Warren and listed for second reading on the Sep 15, 2026 City Council agenda. It also sets water conservation, monitoring and public reporting requirements.

memphistn.gov

Local

Memphis, Tennessee

Ordinance No. 5985

Pending second reading Sep 15, 2026

Tiered review with no potable water for routine cooling

Would bar potable water for routine heat rejection or evaporative cooling at larger facilities after a commissioning period of up to 90 days, require separate meters for potable, nonpotable, reclaimed and process water, and restrict new direct withdrawals from the Memphis Sand aquifer for routine cooling.

Sponsored by Councilman Philip Spinosa as an alternative to a blanket moratorium, with a tiered large-load review and a digital infrastructure district. It was listed for second reading on the Sep 15, 2026 agenda; the posted text is marked as a draft pending legal and council review.

memphistn.gov

State

Michigan

HB 6138

Proposed Jun 30, 2026

Businesses: other; data center water usage requirements; provide for. Creates new act.

As introduced (the data center water regulation act), would bar anyone from beginning construction or operation of a data center in Michigan unless it uses a closed-loop cooling system or uses only municipal water, and would require any noncompliant data center built after the effective date, including one using groundwater or surface water, to cease operation immediately. Violations carry civil fines of up to $1,000,000 per day, enforced by county prosecutors or the attorney general.

HB 6138. Last official action Jun 30, 2026: Bill electronically reproduced 06/25/2026 (introduced and referred to Committee on Government Operations 6/25/2026).

legislature.mi.gov

State

North Carolina

SB 730

Proposed Jun 3, 2026

Ratepayer Protection Act: DEQ water use standards banning evaporative cooling

The House version would direct DEQ to adopt water use standards for data centers of 100 MW or more that may require closed-loop or reclaimed water systems in areas with water availability concerns and may not permit evaporative cooling. It would also require applicants to attest they will use closed-loop water or liquid cooling.

The House passed its second committee substitute 69 to 44 on June 3, 2026, and the Senate referred it to Rules and Operations for concurrence on June 8. No later action appears on the official history as of September 23.

ncleg.gov

State

Ohio

Data center cooling and tariff legislation

Proposed 2026 session

Cooling, rate-class and tariff requirements

Would impose new cooling requirements, a separate rate class, and tariff conditions on data centers.

Not a moratorium. Ohio is pursuing the utility-regulation route rather than the siting route, which reaches existing facilities as well as new ones.

bondbuyer.com

State

Pennsylvania

SB 1470

Referred to committee Sep 24, 2026

Closed-loop, reclaimed or recycled water for data center cooling

Would require data centers using more than 100,000 gallons of water a year to use closed-loop cooling, reclaimed water, recycled water or another method the Department of Environmental Protection approves, under a compliance plan the department rules on within 30 days. Where none is feasible, the operator must file projected withdrawals, discharges and consumptive use and pay a large water user mitigation charge covering all costs of serving it.

Introduced by Senator Tracy Pennycuick with two cosponsors and referred to the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee on Sep 24, 2026. It would also bar water service providers from recovering from existing residential customers any cost that would not have been incurred but for a data center.

palegis.us

Local

Sioux County, Iowa

Amendment to County Ordinance No. 1

First reading approved Sep 29, 2026

Closed-loop cooling required and private wells barred for cooling

Would require data centers in unincorporated areas to use closed-loop water cooling, bar them from using private wells for cooling, and limit them to 25 megawatts.

The Board of Supervisors approved first reading on Sep 29, 2026. Second reading is set for Oct 13 and a third and final reading for Oct 27.

ktiv.com

State

South Carolina

HB 4583

Proposed 2026 session

Zero net withdrawal closed-loop mandate

Would require closed-loop systems achieving zero net water withdrawal and net zero wastewater discharge, and prohibit extraction of groundwater and municipal water for cooling.

Gaining bipartisan co-sponsors. The strictest state-level architecture mandate introduced so far: it does not set a performance threshold, it removes the water source.

MultiState

Federal

United States

H.R. 10004

Proposed Introduced Jul 30, 2026

Defending Our Energy and Water Act

The Administrator of the Office of Electronic Government would revise the minimum requirements for new federal data centers under section 834(b) of the FY2015 National Defense Authorization Act to include protections for water resources, including use of the most water efficient cooling systems, and the section 834 sunset would move from 2026 to 2031. Section 2921(a)(1) of title 10 would be amended to require the Department of Defense to identify and integrate water efficiency technologies at its data centers.

Introduced by Representative Scholten with Representative Subramanyam and referred to Oversight and Government Reform and to Armed Services. It reaches federal and defense facilities rather than commercial ones, so it sets a procurement standard rather than a disclosure duty. The extension of the 2026 sunset is what keeps the underlying federal data center requirement alive at all.

govinfo.gov

State

Iowa

HF 2001

Failed Jan 13, 2026

A bill for an act relating to water efficiency of data centers, including requirements for water-efficient cooling technologies and encouragement for the use

As introduced, requires all new data centers (1 MW or more), and any permitted but not yet built as of January 1, 2026, to use cooling that achieves a water usage effectiveness of 0.2 liters per kWh or lower, and expansions to bring the whole facility to that rating; it encourages nonpotable, recycled and treated wastewater. Covered facilities would file a cooling and water sourcing plan with the Department of Natural Resources and annual compliance reports for five years, with civil penalties up to $10,000 per day.

HF 2001. Last official action Jan 13, 2026: Introduced, referred to Commerce (H.J. 40); no further action before the 91st General Assembly adjourned sine die May 3, 2026.

legis.iowa.gov

State

Kansas

SB 400

Failed Apr 10, 2026

Closed-loop cooling requirement for data centers

No requirement took effect.

The Kansas Legislature's bill history shows SB 400, which would have required data centers to use closed-loop cooling, died in the Senate Committee on Utilities on April 10, 2026. This corrects a stale status and did not occur after September 9.

kslegislature.gov

Rules that decide where a facility may draw from, including per-square-foot caps, large-volume user ordinances and the interstate basin thresholds.

Local

Austin, Texas

Large-load data center resolution

Enacted Aug 27, 2026

Zoning and water requirements written before the first hyperscale site

The City Council adopted Item 61 as amended on August 27, 2026, initiating amendments to City Code Title 25, the Land Development Code, to establish where data centers may operate, what development standards apply, and what permits they need. An amendment carried by the Mayor Pro Tem added a requirement that data centers develop an operations plan demonstrating on-site operations requirements, including water and reclaimed water use, energy use, noise generation and lighting impacts, before site plan approval is issued.

Austin had no land use classification for data centers, which left the city little authority over one that was proposed. Austin Energy serves 10 data centers drawing between 1 and 20 megawatts, and no hyperscale facility has been proposed inside city limits. The vote was unanimous, and instead of waiting for the full framework in spring 2027 the council asked staff to return with a first set of rules by the end of 2026. Sponsors cited the low response rate to the state water survey as the reason to legislate locally. The measure requires a plan, not a metered volume.

cbsaustin.com

Local

Calexico, California

Zoning code amendment prohibiting data centers

Adopted Sep 16, 2026

A citywide ban on data centers

Amends the zoning regulations to prohibit data centers within city limits.

The City Council adopted the ban 3 to 0 on Sep 16, 2026, with two members absent. The planning director cited electricity demand and water consumption among the effects of large data centers. The ban sets no water standard; it removes the use.

ivpressonline.com

Local

Chandler, Arizona

2015 water-intensive business ordinance

Enacted 2015

115 gallons per day per 1,000 square feet

Restricts new water-intensive businesses from developing unless they align with the city's economic development plan, and limits data centers to 115 gallons per day per 1,000 square feet of space.

The first municipal data center water regulation in Arizona, and the oldest instrument in this tracker. It was written after the city discovered in 2013 how much water an existing data center was using, when the operator began requesting additional water connections.

Phoenix New Times

Local

Coweta County, Georgia

Data Center Ordinance

Enacted Dec 2025

Industrial zoning with utility capacity requirements

Permits data centers in light industrial and industrial districts subject to requirements on location, buffering, design standards, noise, lighting, traffic and utility capacity.

In January 2026 Atlas Development amended its application seeking a more intensive industrial classification, and residents filed an appeal to stop the project on protected rural land.

CBS News

Local

Floyd County, Georgia

Data center ordinance

Enacted Aug 25, 2026

Zoning and development standards for data centers

Prioritizes closed-loop cooling, requires a water reclamation and reuse system for any water-cooled equipment, prohibits private wells and direct connections to surface water or aquifers, requires public sewer, and bars permits until utilities confirm in writing that water and sewer capacity will be available.

The Board of Commissioners approved the ordinance on Aug 25, 2026, limiting data centers to the Heavy Industrial district in unincorporated Floyd County, with fines of up to $1,000 a day.

wrganews.com

Regional

Great Lakes Basin: IL, IN, MI, MN, NY, OH, PA, WI plus Ontario and Quebec

Great Lakes Compact, 2008

Enacted In force since 2008

Diversions outside the basin prohibited

Prohibits diversions of Great Lakes water outside the basin and requires that withdrawals within the basin be managed consistently with conservation and the long-term integrity of the resource.

Only one diversion application has ever been approved, for the City of Waukesha, Wisconsin. The eight Great Lakes states have become one of the country's data center epicenters, with more than 220 facilities still planned across the region, and the compact governs the water without governing the siting.

greatlakes.org

State

Idaho

H 895

Enacted Apr 2, 2026

DATA CENTERS, Adds to existing law to establish limitations on consumptive use of water for cooling certain data centers.

As enacted (2026 Idaho Session Laws ch. 291, new Idaho Code 42-252), data centers as defined in Idaho Code 63-3622VV that begin construction on or after July 1, 2026 may not use water for cooling as a consumptive use unless the water is supplied by a municipal, water district, or water and sewer district water system. It also declares legislative findings that data center water use conflicts with the local public interest and water conservation, for the Department of Water Resources director to consider when reviewing new appropriations or transfers for data centers.

H 895. Last official action Apr 2, 2026: Reported Signed by Governor on April 2, 2026; Session Law Chapter 291; Effective 07/01/2026.

legislature.idaho.gov

Local

Logan County, Colorado

Resolution 2026-5

Enacted Feb 17, 2026

Water supply plans for any facility at or above one megawatt

Data centers of one megawatt or more must submit plans for water supplies, septic systems and waste disposal, together with comprehensive impact analyses, wildlife mitigation plans and liability insurance.

The one-megawatt trigger is low by data center standards, so the rule reaches small facilities that most siting ordinances on this tracker do not. Like the Weld County rule it asks for a plan at the application stage and creates no continuing reporting duty, so Colorado still publishes no data center water figure.

spencerfane.com

State

Massachusetts

Executive Order 658

Enacted Sep 8, 2026

Permits for data centers over 25 MW conditioned on water standards

MassDEP, EFSB, MEPA and other agencies may not issue permits for data centers above 25 MW peak demand unless the applicant conforms with the June 25, 2026 Statement of Expectations, including its water use provisions, and files a community benefits agreement. MassDEP must develop protocols requiring such projects to protect water quality and quantity, and applicants must attest they will file annual disclosures under EEA guidance.

Governor Healey signed the order on September 8, 2026, building on the framework and sales tax exemption pause she announced June 25. It also bars nondisclosure agreements for permitting agencies.

mass.gov

Local

Mesa, Avondale and Phoenix, Arizona

Large-volume water user ordinances

Enacted In force

Industrial usage caps with supplemental supply purchase

Water utilities for Mesa, Avondale and the City of Phoenix have each adopted ordinances capping usage for industrial facilities and requiring developers to purchase supplemental water supplies if they wish to exceed those caps.

A market mechanism rather than a prohibition: exceeding the cap is permitted, but the developer must bring new supply rather than draw down the existing one. Cataloged in the ASU Morrison Institute survey of Arizona large-volume water user ordinances.

ASU Morrison Institute

State

Michigan

Data center tax exemption law

Enacted In force

Municipal water capacity condition on tax breaks

Data centers receiving the state tax exemption may use municipal water only from a system with available capacity.

A capacity test rather than a volume cap, and it binds only facilities taking the tax break. Michigan sits inside the Great Lakes Compact, so a facility that self-sources faces the basin rules instead.

circleofblue.org

State

Minnesota

Laws 2025, 1st Spec. Sess. ch. 12, secs. 3 and 4

Enacted Jun 14, 2025

DNR review and permit conditions for data centers over 100 million gallons a year

Lets the Department of Natural Resources request information from a data center likely to consume more than 100 million gallons of water a year, to assess the impact before a permit application, and directs DNR, when permitting such a facility, to protect public health, safety and welfare and to reasonably consider water conservation technologies.

Signed by the Governor on Jun 14, 2025 (Minn. Stat. 103G.265 subd. 5 and 103G.271 subd. 5b). Information exchanged in the preapplication review is nonpublic data, and the conservation technologies are considerations rather than mandates. The two 2026 bills on this tracker that would have changed these provisions failed.

revisor.mn.gov

State

Mississippi

SB3410

Enacted Apr 8, 2026

City of Brandon and West Rankin Utility Authority; authorize to enter agreements w/data center for water & wastewater infrastructure.

As enacted (approved April 8, 2026, effective on passage), authorizes the City of Brandon and the West Rankin Utility Authority to contract with a data center developer or operator for water and wastewater infrastructure that the developer reimburses from its own funds, including delivery of reclaimed water for cooling. Agreements may run up to 30 years with renewals and set water volume and treatment capacity guarantees and negotiated rates.

SB3410. Last official action Apr 8, 2026: Approved by Governor.

billstatus.ls.state.ms.us

Local

North Little Rock, Arkansas

Zoning amendment

Enacted Sep 14, 2026

Data center campus conditional use rules

Data center campuses must not create additional stress on Central Arkansas Water or North Little Rock Electric that could harm existing customers; the city attorney said the water utility would have to affirm it can serve a facility without affecting the rest of its customers.

The City Council approved the ordinance on Monday, Sep 14, 2026, adding data center campuses as a conditional use in I-3 industrial zones with a 2,000-foot separation from residential uses.

katv.com

State

Ohio

Lake Erie watershed rule

Enacted In force

Consumptive-use permit above 1 million gallons per day

In the Lake Erie watershed, any facility proposing new or increased withdrawals above 1 million gallons per day must obtain a consumptive-use permit and demonstrate no significant adverse impact.

Pre-existing water law rather than a data center measure, but it is the binding constraint on large facilities in northern Ohio and it applies without any new legislation.

Control Associates

State

Pennsylvania

Executive Order 2026-05

Enacted Aug 18, 2026

DEP permit review for data centers over 25 MW conditioned on water authorizations

For data centers over 25 MW whose developers have not signed a GRID Requirements consent order, DEP may not begin reviewing permits until the applicant shows local approvals and any required water withdrawal or wastewater discharge authorization. DEP must notify operating data centers that annual energy and water reports under Fiscal Code 1813-B are due by July 1, 2027.

Governor Shapiro signed the order on August 18, 2026. It predates the September 9 refresh but was not in the tracker; it also removes data centers from the PA Permit Fast Track Program.

pa.gov

Local

Salt Lake City, Utah

Large water user ordinance

Enacted 2022

Industries above 200,000 gallons per day barred

Adopted an ordinance barring industries that use more than 200,000 gallons of water a day.

Predates the AI buildout and was not written for data centers, but it is one of the few municipal instruments that sets a hard daily volume ceiling rather than a review trigger.

grist.org

State

Virginia

Executive Order 22 (2026)

Enacted Sep 18, 2026

Cooling water scarcity areas and Data Center Accountability Framework

Directs DEQ to expedite regulations setting criteria for cooling water scarcity areas, where evaporating water for cooling could reduce water available for other uses, and designates the Eastern Virginia Groundwater Management Area as one. DEQ must give the Governor a timeline, workplan and stakeholder plan for the rule within 180 days, and a local toolkit covering water use and wastewater review is due within 120 days.

Governor Spanberger signed the order on September 18, 2026. It rescinds Executive Order 30 (2024) and Executive Directive 5 (2023) and also bars state agency nondisclosure agreements on data center projects.

governor.virginia.gov

Local

Weld County, Colorado

Code Ordinance 2026-01

Enacted Apr 2026

Proof of water required with the application

The county adopted siting rules for data centers that require an applicant to provide proof of water, set a 65-decibel noise limit at the property line, and prohibit data centers in agricultural zones.

Weld County is one of several Colorado local governments that wrote rules while the state legislature did not. Proof of water is a supply test taken at the permit counter, which is a different instrument from a use disclosure and produces no published volume.

spencerfane.com

Local

Wixom, Michigan

Data center zoning ordinance amendments

Enacted Adopted Aug 26, 2026

Well water barred outright for data centers

Data centers in the city are prohibited from using well water. The same amendments impose a 1,500 foot setback from residential areas, parks and K-12 schools and require a 48-hour weekday sound study as part of an application.

Adopted by the City Council on August 26, 2026 with an effective date no later than September 6, 2026, ending a six-month moratorium about two and a half weeks early. The vote followed a federal lawsuit filed against the city over that moratorium by Wixom Industrial One, LLC. A flat prohibition on groundwater is a different instrument from a cap: it moves the entire load onto the municipal system rather than limiting it, and it publishes no volume.

yahoo.com

Local

Boston, Massachusetts

Council order to amend the zoning code

Filed, referred to committee Sep 16, 2026

Data centers as a prohibited use in every zoning district

Would define data centers in the zoning code and make them a prohibited use in every zoning district and subdistrict.

Filed by Councilor Miniard Culpepper for the Sep 16, 2026 council meeting and assigned to committee for a hearing. The order states that without a definition, data centers could be proposed under broader use classes that do not account for their size, emissions, noise, water consumption and other effects.

boston.com

Local

Colleton County, South Carolina

Gigawatt campus application

Proposed 2026

First proposed gigawatt campus in the state

An 860-acre, approximately $6 billion campus proposed for the Lowcountry would be South Carolina's first gigawatt-scale data center. Residents and elected officials packed a county civic center meeting to oppose it.

Tracked as a live siting decision. South Carolina is simultaneously considering HB 4583, which would require zero net water withdrawal statewide.

yahoo.com

Local

Eau Claire, Wisconsin

Sustainability Advisory Committee recommendations

Proposed Sep 16, 2026

Data center standards sent to City Council

Recommends supplemental standards requiring data centers to use the lowest amount of water allowable for cooling as technology advances, along with water use, noise, light and air standards.

The committee approved its recommendations on Sep 16, 2026 and forwarded them to City Council.

weau.com

Local

Festus, Missouri

Draft water-use limits

Proposed 2026

Water limits for any new industry, including data centers

A city council member is drafting ordinances that would set limits on water use for any new industry, including data centers.

Drafted after a data center vote in which four council members were subsequently voted out. Notable for regulating by water volume across all industry rather than singling out one sector, which is the objection the Data Center Coalition raises against sector-specific mandates.

Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting

Local

Lopatcong Township, New Jersey

Planning Board recommendations

Proposed 2026

Data center rules referred to Town Council

The Planning Board referred a set of recommendations on data center rules to the Town Council for adoption.

Included as an example of the planning-board referral stage, where most local water conditions are first drafted.

TAPinto

Local

Montgomery County, Tennessee

Proposed zoning update

Planning Commission approved Sep 22, 2026

Resource plan for data centers

Would require data centers to submit a resource plan for electric, water and sewer service for Board of Zoning Appeals approval before Planning Commission review, limit them to M-1 and M-2 zones, and bar passing infrastructure costs to utility ratepayers.

The Clarksville-Montgomery County Regional Planning Commission approved the update on Sep 22, 2026 with one commissioner voting against; it goes next to the Montgomery County Commission. For water, an applicant would need a letter from a municipal supplier stating whether it can serve the site, or for surface water, a study showing the source can accommodate the demand.

clarksvillenow.com

State

New Jersey

A 5294

Proposed Jun 18, 2026

"Responsible Data Center Development and Resource Protection Act"; establishes Statewide framework concerning siting, land use approval, energy sourcing

As introduced, would require developers of large load data centers (peak load of at least 25 MW) to file a resource impact statement with the State Planning Commission before seeking municipal site plan approval, including projected daily and peak water use, cooling technology, wastewater discharge, a drought contingency plan, and a recycled-water analysis. It would also direct DEP to create a permit system for diversions of more than 100,000 gallons per day for large load data centers, with water-efficiency and cooling standards, drought conservation protocols, and a water resource impact assessment required of every large load data center regardless of volume.

A 5294. Last official action Jun 18, 2026: Introduced, Referred to Assembly Science, Innovation and Technology Committee.

njleg.state.nj.us

Local

Newton County, Georgia

Unified Development Ordinance revision

Proposed 2026 draft

Technology Campus district covering water resources

Would create a Technology Campus zoning district for data centers, require a minimum of 300 acres in TC or heavy industrial M2 districts, and require a conditional-use permit in either classification. The broader ordinance revision covers zoning, development regulations and water resources.

Applies to unincorporated Newton County. Part of the wave of Georgia county ordinances adopted since late 2025.

The Covington News

State

Ohio

SB 378

Proposed Mar 25, 2026

Enact the Responsible Water Use by Data Centers Act

As introduced (Responsible Water Use by Data Centers Act), requires a data center consumptive use permit from the ODNR Division of Water Resources chief before any consumptive withdrawal of state waters, bars any new or increased consumptive use above an average of 5 million gallons per day over 30 days, and requires annual reports. It also makes data center owners pay all water and sewer infrastructure costs attributable to the facility so other ratepayers do not.

SB 378. Last official action Mar 25, 2026: Referred to committee: Senate Public Utilities.

legislature.ohio.gov

State

Pennsylvania

HB 2246

Proposed May 1, 2026

An Act amending Title 27 (Environmental Resources) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, in water resources planning, further providing for State water

As passed by the House (PN 2937), would add 27 Pa.C.S. 3118.1 requiring developers of covered data centers (proposed consumptive use over 100,000 gallons per day over 30 days) to notify DEP before applying and report estimated daily, monthly, and annual maximum water use and discharge, the water source, and evidence of no adverse effect on other users; DEP must respond within 30 days on water availability. DEP would add Clean Streams Law permit conditions, could require aquifer tests and river basin commission approval, must deny requests with a reasonably foreseeable risk of adverse impact, and must order withdrawals halted if post-construction monitoring shows harm.

HB 2246. Last official action May 1, 2026: In the Senate: Referred to Environmental Resources and Energy.

palegis.us

State

Pennsylvania

HB 2760

Proposed Sep 9, 2026

An Act providing for the protection of water supplies by requiring commercial data centers to restore or replace a polluted or diminutive water supply

As introduced, would require a commercial data center (peak demand of 25 MW or more) that pollutes or diminishes a public or private water supply to restore or replace it, with DEP investigating complaints within 10 days and ruling within 45 days. It creates a rebuttable presumption of data center responsibility for pollution of water supplies within 1,000 feet during construction or operation, requires temporary water supply in that case, and directs DEP to set up a toll-free contamination hotline and publish confirmed cases.

HB 2760. Last official action Sep 9, 2026: Referred to Environmental and Natural Resource Protection.

palegis.us

State

Pennsylvania

SB 1459

Referred to committee Sep 24, 2026

Independent water study before a data center application

Would require anyone proposing a data center to give the host municipality a water analysis prepared by an independent, state-recognized third party at least 30 days before a formal development application, covering anticipated water use, water quality and supply sustainability within 20 miles, and counting both on-site water and the water embedded in the site's electricity demand. The study must be publicly available on request.

Introduced as the Data Center Water Usage Study Act by Senator Rosemary Brown with four cosponsors and referred to the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee on Sep 24, 2026. The developer pays for the study. It applies to data centers not yet approved, completed or in service.

palegis.us

Local

San Antonio, Texas

Unified Development Code data center rules

Proposed Aug 25, 2026

An aquifer recharge zone ban weighed instead of a pause

Staff presented zoning changes that would confine data centers to industrial or commercial districts, keep a 500-foot setback from homes, schools, hospitals and assisted living facilities, and prohibit construction in the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone. The council also weighed a building permit moratorium of up to 180 days.

Development Services recommended permanent changes to the development code over a temporary pause, and the director told the council that zoning and the code can set setbacks and locations but cannot regulate how much water a data center uses. Code changes were expected to reach a council vote by mid-October 2026. San Antonio sits over the Edwards Aquifer, so a recharge zone prohibition is a water measure about where water is drawn from rather than how much is drawn.

tpr.org

State

Texas

Blanco-Pedernales GCD resolution

Proposed Apr 16, 2026

Groundwater district request for authority to deny data center permits

The Blanco-Pedernales Groundwater Conservation District passed a resolution urging the Texas Legislature to grant it the legal authority to deny water permits to data centers.

Groundwater conservation districts are the primary local groundwater regulators in Texas, and this one is saying its existing authority is not sufficient to refuse a large industrial permit.

The Texas Dispatch

Federal

United States

H.R. 9777

Proposed Jul 20, 2026

Protecting Ratepayers Act

Would bar any private entity from building, owning or operating a new or existing data center unless all of its water, including backup water, comes from an on-site source or some other source separate from the public water system.

The most restrictive water instrument introduced at any level of government. Against the CRS finding that public water systems supply an estimated 97% of U.S. data center water, this would require the sector to re-source essentially all of its supply.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 9497

Passed House Sep 16, 2026

Water Resources Development Act of 2026

As ordered to be reported in July 2026, would amend U.S. Army Corps of Engineers water supply authority, which governs whether federal reservoir storage can be made available to users including data centers.

The House passed the Water Resources Development Act of 2026 under suspension of the rules on Sep 16, 2026, 415 to 9 (Roll no. 313), after the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee reported it on Sep 3 (H. Rept. 119-795); the Senate received it on Sep 17. The engrossed text keeps Sec. 205(b), which directs the Army Corps to report within one year on the effects of new commercial and industrial water users on Corps water supply and water conservation projects. The text does not use the words data center.

govinfo.gov

Federal

United States

H.R. 10321

Proposed Sep 8, 2026

Responsible Data Center Siting Act of 2026

Directs the Secretary of Energy to set best practices for siting data centers that consider the impacts of a data center's water use, including on water availability to local residents and the surrounding environment, and impacts on water quality.

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA) introduced the bill on Sep 8, 2026 with six cosponsors as part of a four-bill package; it was referred to the Energy and Commerce Committee.

govinfo.gov

Federal

United States

H.R. 10465

Proposed Sep 16, 2026

Public Lands Accountability Act

Would require the Bureau of Land Management to consider a project's impact on regional water supply before authorizing a hyperscale data center on public lands, bar categorical exclusions for such projects, and require a separate environmental review with public involvement when a right-of-way is changed to allow a data center.

Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) introduced the bill on Sep 16, 2026; it was referred to the Natural Resources and Agriculture committees. The introduced text requires each environmental impact statement for a hyperscale data center on public lands to analyze the water expected to be consumed by its cooling system and by on-site power generation over 10 years, and its effect on the region's short- and long-term water supply, drought resilience and water source.

govinfo.gov

State

Virginia

HB 1601

Vetoed 2025 session

Local authority over water resource impact assessments

Would have required assessment of noise impacts and authorized local governments to require water resource impact assessments for data center projects.

Sponsored by Delegate Josh Thomas. Passed the legislature and was vetoed by Governor Youngkin, who described it as creating unnecessary obstacles to data center development.

E&E News

State

Indiana

HB1043

Failed Jan 8, 2026

Data center water regulation.

As introduced, bars operating a data center capable of using at least 10 million gallons of water a month without a consumption permit from the Department of Natural Resources; applications must give estimated maximum day, maximum month and average year water use, the source, and conservation and watershed measures. DNR must decide within 90 days of a complete application and may not approve one that would harm public health or impair water conservation or watershed health.

HB1043. Last official action Jan 8, 2026: Representative Commons added as coauthor; bill remained in House Natural Resources Committee when the 2026 session adjourned sine die February 27, 2026.

iga.in.gov

State

Minnesota

HF 2928

Failed Apr 9, 2026

Preapplication filings for large water appropriation projects required, permit application information for large water appropriation projects added

As introduced (March 27, 2025), would create a DNR preapplication evaluation for any project with proposed consumptive use over 100 million gallons per year or 250,000 gallons per day, and require DNR in permitting such projects to ensure public-interest use, full consideration of water conservation technologies, and resolution of water use conflicts. It would also require an environmental impact statement for new data centers or expansions of 100 MW or more, plus several energy provisions.

HF 2928. Last official action Apr 9, 2026: Author added Jones (bill never left Energy Finance and Policy; 2026 session adjourned May 18, 2026).

revisor.mn.gov

Full or temporary halts, from New York's first-in-the-nation statewide moratorium to county pauses written to buy time for zoning.

Local

Apex, North Carolina

One-year moratorium

Enacted Apr 14, 2026

Moratorium following a withdrawn campus application

Moved toward a one-year moratorium on data centers after the proposed New Hill Digital Campus was withdrawn.

The Town Council voted unanimously on Apr 14, 2026 to enact a one-year moratorium on data centers, data processing facilities and cryptocurrency mining, effective Apr 28, 2026; the mayor said the pause allows research into impacts on water and electricity use.

wral.com

Local

Escondido, California

45-day urgency moratorium

Enacted Aug 26, 2026

A pause while power, water and land use impacts are studied

An urgency ordinance adopted unanimously halts new data center development for 45 days while staff study impacts on power, water, land use and public services and draft land use and zoning regulations. The council may extend the pause once for 10 months and again for 12 months.

The city framed the pause as a public health and safety matter. Staff were directed to return to the council on October 10, 2026 with progress, and the city will form a community advisory committee to take public input while the rules are written. No ordinance number has been published, and the date recorded here is the council meeting identified as the Wednesday preceding the August 28, 2026 report.

ncpipeline.substack.com

Local

Fairfield County, South Carolina

12-month data center moratorium

Adopted Sep 14, 2026

A one-year pause to assess power, water and road capacity

Pauses new data center development for 12 months while the county assesses effects on power, water and road infrastructure and updates its Land Management Ordinance.

County Council approved the moratorium on Sep 14, 2026 and later published a schedule of town halls through January. It sets no water standard.

wistv.com

Local

Foley, Alabama

Six-month moratorium

Enacted Sep 8, 2026

Pause on data centers, cryptocurrency mining and server farms

Pauses data center applications for six months while the city updates ordinances and technical manuals to address water use, air pollution and noise.

The City Council approved the moratorium on Sep 8, 2026; no applications were on file.

cityoffoley.org

Local

Galesburg, Illinois

Item 26-1018

Adopted Sep 21, 2026

A 180-day data center permit moratorium

Bars accepting new data center permit applications and issuing permits through Apr 3, 2027, while the city evaluates the infrastructure, environmental, energy and water demands of data centers and drafts regulations.

The City Council voted 6 to 1 to move the ordinance to final reading and then 7 to 0 to adopt it on Sep 21, 2026. No data center proposal was pending. Applications received before adoption are not covered.

wgil.com

Local

Gilroy, California

Interim urgency ordinance (45-day moratorium)

Adopted Sep 14, 2026

A 45-day pause on new data center applications

The city may not accept, process or approve applications and entitlements for new data centers for 45 days while it writes zoning, siting, development and operational standards; the Council may extend it in two phases up to two years.

The City Council approved it unanimously on Sep 14, 2026, effective immediately. The city says the review would likely cover water use and cooling technology along with grid capacity and noise. The Amazon data center already approved and under construction is not affected.

cityofgilroy.org

Local

Imperial County, California

Data center development freeze

Enacted Jun 2026

Freeze running to June 2027 after a Colorado River water denial

The Board of Supervisors reversed an earlier project approval and adopted a 45-day freeze on data center development, later extended to roughly 10.5 months and running until June 2027.

The freeze followed the Imperial Irrigation District's May 1, 2026 denial of a complete water application filed on April 22 by Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing LLC. The developer petitioned the Superior Court against the district on June 5 and announced an intent to seek a restraining order against the freeze on June 23, with two hearings held in late July 2026. The cities of Imperial and El Centro had each withdrawn from recycled water agreements for the project in late 2025. It is the clearest case in the tracker of a water agency decision, not a zoning decision, stopping a project.

western-water.com

Local

Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana

Construction bar through 2027

Enacted Aug 10, 2026

County-wide pause on new data center construction

The City-County Council voted 23-1 to bar new data center construction in Marion County through the end of 2027.

Statewide context: Indiana has 11 counties with data center ordinances, at least 17 with temporary moratoria, and two, Marshall and Cass, that have banned new data centers outright.

WFYI

Local

Lake County, Illinois

Chapter 151 moratorium ordinance

Enacted Adopted Sep 8, 2026

Eight months, and a legal definition of a data center

An amendment to Chapter 151 of the county code establishing an eight-month moratorium on data center applications in unincorporated Lake County, running through May 2027 or until regulations are adopted, and creating a legal definition of a data center where the county previously had none.

Adopted by the County Board on September 8, 2026 after unanimous recommendations from the Zoning Board of Appeals and the Planning, Building, Zoning and Environment Committee. Board members named energy and water demands among the questions the pause is meant to answer, and county staff will track the state POWER Act, the Illinois bill on this tracker that would require water withdrawal and discharge disclosure through IEPA permitting. The county had no definition of a data center in its ordinances, which is what made regulating one impossible before the pause.

content.govdelivery.com

Local

Lake Elsinore, California

45-day data center moratorium

Enacted Aug 25, 2026

A temporary halt citing strain on water supplies

The city council unanimously approved a 45-day moratorium on data center applications so that the city can study the impacts before any project is entitled.

The city attorney described the impacts the pause is meant to examine as strains on local electrical grids and water supplies, increased greenhouse gas emissions, heat generation, noise and air quality. No ordinance number has been published, and the measure sets no water volume limit. It is the second California city moratorium recorded on this tracker inside a single week.

elsinore247.com

Local

Levy County, Florida

Ordinance 2026-05

Enacted Sep 8, 2026

Temporary moratorium on data center facilities

Halts data center applications, permits and rezonings in unincorporated Levy County from Oct 1, 2026 through Sep 30, 2027 and directs staff to study water supply, groundwater and Floridan Aquifer impacts, cooling systems, wastewater, stormwater, water conservation and drought conditions.

The Board of County Commissioners approved Ordinance 2026-05 at its Sep 8, 2026 meeting; staff must present recommendations by Aug 30, 2027. Findings in the ordinance cite reliance on the Floridan Aquifer and the potential for data centers to place significant demands on regional groundwater supplies.

chronicleonline.com

Local

Lima, Ohio

18-month moratorium

Enacted Sep 14, 2026

Pause on new data centers

Pauses new data center projects for 18 months while city departments evaluate siting, water capacity and electric demand; the utilities director said residential water needs remain the priority.

City Council approved the moratorium on Sep 14, 2026; it exempts the Google data center already under construction. The city reports five reservoirs holding 15 billion gallons and 30 million gallons a day of treatment capacity.

hometownstations.com

Local

Marion County, Florida

Large commercial data center moratorium ordinance

Adopted Sep 15, 2026

A 12-month pause with a study of aquifer withdrawals and springs

Pauses new commercial data centers expected to use 50 megawatts or more at peak demand for 12 months, and directs staff to study Floridan Aquifer withdrawals, water and wastewater capacity, Outstanding Florida Springs and springsheds, and cooling practices.

The Board of County Commissioners voted 4 to 1 on Sep 15, 2026 to approve the freeze and then 5 to 0 to adopt the ordinance. It sets no water cap or cooling requirement; the study is meant to inform permanent rules.

352today.com

Local

Mattoon, Illinois

One-year data center moratorium

Enacted Adopted Sep 1, 2026

A half-acre threshold and an annual renewal

The city will not accept new applications for data centers larger than 21,780 square feet, about half an acre, inside Mattoon or in the area up to 1.5 miles beyond the city limits where it holds zoning authority. Existing businesses may continue operating. The moratorium renews each year unless the council acts to change or end it.

Approved unanimously after roughly 50 minutes of discussion. The city says community members have put valid questions to it about how large data centers could affect the water, environment, health, power costs, city services and finances. The automatic annual renewal inverts the usual design: most pauses on this tracker expire unless extended, and this one continues unless ended. Illinois publishes no measured data center water figure.

mattoon.illinois.gov

Local

Mead, Colorado

12-month data center moratorium

Enacted Adopted Aug 31, 2026

A year to write water and infrastructure rules

A 12-month moratorium barring data centers from applying to develop in Mead while town staff study impacts and draft regulations covering infrastructure demand, water use and setbacks. The pause can end earlier if the review finishes first.

Approved by the Board of Trustees 4 to 2 at its August 31, 2026 meeting, with Trustees Hagan and Crane opposed. Mead is the third Colorado jurisdiction on this tracker, after Logan and Weld Counties, to act on data center water, and the first of the three to pause rather than condition. Colorado still publishes no measured data center water figure.

berthoudsurveyor.com

State

New York

Executive Order

Enacted Jul 2026

First statewide moratorium on new hyperscale data centers

Bars construction of new hyperscale data centers drawing 50 MW or more, and directs a statewide environmental review that must examine energy use, water consumption, land use, pollution and impacts on disadvantaged communities.

The first statewide data center moratorium in the country. The enabling bill cleared the Senate 43-17 and the Assembly 103-38 on June 4, 2026. Water consumption is named in the review scope, which makes this the largest single water study ordered by any state.

governor.ny.gov

Local

North Mankato, Minnesota

Data center moratorium ordinance

Enacted Sep 21, 2026

Moratorium triggered by water volume

Imposes a 12-month moratorium, renewable for one more year, on data centers that exceed 150,000 square feet or use 50,000 gallons of water per day or more, while the city studies local impacts.

The City Council unanimously adopted a 12-month moratorium on Sep 21, 2026, renewable for one more year, after tabling it on Aug 3. The ordinance defines a data center as a facility that exceeds 150,000 square feet and/or 50,000 gallons of water per day or more, and authorizes a study of local impacts.

mankatofreepress.com

Local

North Port, Florida

Data center moratorium ordinance

Adopted Sep 22, 2026

An 18-month pause while the city writes rules on water demand

Stops acceptance and approval of data center applications for 18 months and directs staff to study the issue and prepare new rules, because the land development code does not address the water demand, infrastructure capacity and environmental impact of large data center projects.

The City Commission passed the moratorium 3 to 2 on Sep 22, 2026. A proposed facility of roughly 900,000 square feet can still be accepted and reviewed but not approved; the two commissioners voting no wanted it included in the pause.

winknews.com

Local

Palm Springs, California

Data center moratorium extension

Extended Sep 30, 2026

Pause on data centers extended to two years

Extends the temporary ban on data centers by 22 months and 15 days, for a total of two years from the original Aug 26, 2026 approval, the longest allowed under state law.

The City Council voted unanimously on the night of Sep 30, 2026; the 45-day moratorium approved Aug 26 had been due to expire Oct 10. The city's staff report said Palm Springs has no rules on where data centers can be built or how much power or water they can draw. No water volume was reported.

nbcpalmsprings.com

Local

Pima County, Arizona

Resolution No. 2026-56

Adopted as amended Sep 22, 2026

A 120-day pause on new data center permits

Pauses permits for new data centers that have not yet applied for site improvement or building permits for 120 days while the zoning code is updated; the Board may waive the pause after a hearing on a project's long-term effects, including on air quality and electric and water quality.

The Board of Supervisors approved the resolution as amended 3 to 2 on Sep 22, 2026, with Supervisors Christy and Scott opposed. Its recitals cite water use in regions already under water stress and Arizona Department of Water Resources drought conditions. It sets no water limit.

pima.legistar.com

Local

Reno, Nevada

Application pause

Enacted May 2026

Temporary pause on new data center applications

The Reno City Council placed a temporary pause on new data center applications.

Adopted weeks before the Nye County water board sought its own moratorium, in a state where a large share of capacity sits in high or extremely high water stress areas.

nevadacurrent.com

Local

Seattle, Washington

Council Bill 121214 and Resolution 32204

Enacted Jun 9, 2026

An emergency pause with a water use analysis attached

The council unanimously adopted an emergency moratorium on new data centers running up to six months, extendable by a further six months, together with a companion resolution directing city departments to analyze impacts including water usage, electrical grid capacity, utility rates, land use, jobs and public health.

The bill was sponsored by Councilmembers Lin and Hollingsworth and the resolution by Councilmember Juarez. Naming water usage in the analysis is what makes the pause a water measure rather than a purely land use one. The resolution orders study and publishes no volume, so Washington still has no measured data center water figure.

council.seattle.gov

State

Texas

Governor's letter to TCEQ

Enacted Sep 21, 2026

Pause on all TCEQ permits for data center projects

Directs TCEQ to pause issuing all permits related to data center projects until ERCOT completes its data center review, so that ERCOT and TWDB water use findings inform permitting. TCEQ must report its compliance to the Governor by October 19, 2026.

Governor Abbott sent the letter to TCEQ Executive Director Kelly Keel on September 21, 2026, extending his August ERCOT audit and September 14 TWDB directive. The letter says data centers must not use water needed by local communities and must report electricity and water usage.

gov.texas.gov

Local

Tulare County, California

Interim data center moratorium extension

Extended Sep 22, 2026

Pause on new data centers extended ten months

Extends the moratorium on new data center development in unincorporated Tulare County for another 10 months while the county drafts zoning rules.

The Board of Supervisors voted 5 to 0 on Sep 22, 2026. County staff had said the zoning code was written before data centers and does not account for their demands on electricity, water and land. The pause does not reach land inside city limits.

thesungazette.com

Local

Warren County, Ohio

Six-month hyperscale data center moratorium

Adopted Reported Sep 30, 2026

Pause on hyperscale data centers pending a water impact study

Pauses hyperscale data center development of 10,000 square feet or more in county-controlled unincorporated areas for six months.

The Board of County Commissioners approved the moratorium 3 to 0, as reported Sep 30, 2026. The pause allows time for a water impact study by the Ohio EPA and the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments, expected in November 2026. County staff said no developer had yet asked to build a data center in the unincorporated areas. No water volume was reported.

journal-news.com

Local

Woodburn, Oregon

Moratorium resolution

Enacted Sep 14, 2026

120-day data center moratorium

Stops acceptance and review of data center applications for at least 120 days while the city evaluates peak water demand and wastewater discharge along with power, cost and noise issues.

The City Council approved the resolution on Sep 14, 2026; Oregon law caps moratoriums at 120 days unless extended after another hearing.

woodburn-or.gov

Local

Woodbury, Minnesota

Draft interim ordinance

Adopted Sep 23, 2026

Moratorium on data centers and other high volume public infrastructure users

Bars permits for new or expanded data centers, rezonings, comprehensive plan amendments, conditional use permits and variances for one year, and applies the same pause to other high-volume users of public infrastructure such as sanitary sewer or water, while staff study regulation.

All four City Council members and Mayor Anne Burt voted on Sep 23, 2026 to adopt the one-year moratorium, as reported by the Pioneer Press. The ordinance sets no water volume; it pauses approvals while the city studies how to regulate its largest water and sewer users.

yahoo.com

Local

Baltimore County, Maryland

Bill 79-26

Passed County Council 7-0 Sep 22, 2026

Data center permit pause extended through 2027

Extends to Dec 31, 2027 the Bill 3-26 suspension of data center permits, development plan approvals and zoning petitions; Bill 3-26 requires a Planning Board report comparing the average electricity and public water usage of data centers with other uses.

The County Council passed the bill unanimously on Sep 22, 2026, with all seven members as sponsors; the county's bill record listed no enactment date yet. Bill 3-26's findings cite data centers' large use of public utilities such as water and electricity.

countycouncilweb.s3.amazonaws.com

Local

Jasper County, South Carolina

Data center and cryptocurrency mining moratorium

Second reading passed Sep 21, 2026

A pause covering incentives as well as permits

A temporary pause on accepting, reviewing and approving applications for data centers, data processing facilities and cryptocurrency mining operations, extending to rezoning requests, building permits, site plans and economic incentives tied to those projects.

County Council unanimously approved second reading of the 12-month moratorium on Sep 21, 2026, covering unincorporated Jasper County and cryptocurrency mining; third and final reading is expected next month.

wtoc.com

Local

Leon County, Florida

Proposed 18-month moratorium

Proposed Sep 15, 2026

Pause on large-load data center applications

Would pause large-scale data center applications for 18 months while rules on water consumption, electricity demand and utility costs are drafted.

Commissioners unanimously advanced the moratorium on Sep 15, 2026; a final vote is set for Oct 13.

fox49.tv

Local

Manatee County, Florida

Ordinance 26-42

Approved at first hearing Sep 22, 2026

Temporary moratorium on data center applications

Bars applications for one year from large-load customers or facilities with substantial electrical, water, wastewater or other utility demands, including data centers; the county says it protects Florida's water resources from data center consumption.

The Planning Commission reviewed the ordinance Sep 17, 2026 and the Board of County Commissioners took it up at a Sep 22 public hearing, with the pause described as starting Sep 22; county scheduling listed a further hearing on Oct 6.

yourobserver.com

Local

Memphis, Tennessee

Ordinance No. 5982

Final vote set for Oct 6 Sep 15, 2026

A temporary moratorium with a study of water consumption and cooling

Would stop processing zoning, land use, building and other permits for new data centers during the moratorium, while a study committee that includes Memphis Light, Gas and Water evaluates water consumption, cooling technologies and conservation measures among other effects.

Sponsored by Councilmembers Smiley, Green, Swearengen-Washington and Easter-Thomas and listed for third and final reading on Sep 15, 2026. The vote was pushed back so members could revise the proposal and is now set for Oct 6.

memphistn.gov

Local

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Proposed moratorium ordinance

Plan Commission approved Sep 28, 2026

One-year pause on data center applications

Would stop city processing of data center applications for one year or until permanent zoning rules are adopted, citing demands on energy and water infrastructure.

Sponsored by Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic with three colleagues. The City Plan Commission approved the ordinance unanimously on Sep 28, 2026; it goes next to the Common Council's Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee, and it takes effect only if the Common Council passes it.

fox6now.com

Local

Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

120-day data center moratorium

Proposed First reading Sep 8, 2026

A pause in a service area that may not qualify for a groundwater permit

A 120-day moratorium on requests related to data centers, giving town leaders and staff time to gather information on environmental impacts and decide what restrictions to adopt, while leaving smaller business-related data facilities unaffected.

The Planning Committee recommended the moratorium and the town council took up first reading on September 8, 2026, so it is not yet adopted. The proposal cites heavy demands on water and electricity. Mount Pleasant Waterworks general manager Allan Clum has said any customer drawing more than 3 million gallons a month needs a groundwater permit and that he does not believe the Mount Pleasant service area would meet the requirements for one, which makes the supply question here a permitting question rather than a pricing one.

charlestoncitypaper.com

Local

Nye County, Nevada

Water District emergency order

Proposed May 27, 2026

Emergency order seeking a Pahrump Valley moratorium

The Nye County Water District Governing Board unanimously approved an emergency order requesting that the County Commission place a moratorium on data centers in the Pahrump Valley.

A water authority asking a land use authority to stop approvals. The split between who controls water and who controls zoning is the recurring structural problem in this tracker.

nevadacurrent.com

Local

Oakland, California

Interim urgency ordinance (File 27-0050)

Committee approved Sep 22, 2026

A 45-day urgency moratorium on data center entitlements

Would bar approval of any land use entitlement or agreement to develop or operate a data center for 45 days, extendable under state law.

Introduced by Councilmember Carroll Fife and approved as amended by the Life Enrichment Committee on Sep 22, 2026. Its findings state that city infrastructure, including the water supply system, was not designed for the high electrical and water demand of data centers. It takes effect only if the full City Council adopts it.

oakland.legistar1.com

Local

Orange County, Florida

Proposed one-year data center moratorium

Study directed, no vote Sep 15, 2026

A pause proposed against a projected groundwater shortfall

A moratorium of at least one year on new data center applications while the county studies water and power impacts and writes land development code language for data centers, which the code currently does not address.

On Sep 15, 2026 commissioners expressed support for a temporary moratorium on large AI data centers but took no formal vote; they directed staff to study zoning, electrical load, water and noise impacts and could revisit the moratorium in early December 2026. The county cites a projected 96-million-gallon water shortfall by 2045.

cfpublic.org

Local

Raleigh, North Carolina

Proposed six-month moratorium

Proposed Sep 16, 2026

Pause on new data centers

Would pause new data center development for six months to study land, electricity and water demands.

City leaders announced the proposal on Sep 16, 2026; a public hearing is set for Oct 6.

wral.com

Local

San Francisco, California

Proposed interim moratorium ordinance

Proposed Sep 15, 2026

Pause on new data center approvals

Would pause city approvals of new data centers while the city writes rules addressing water use, energy demand, pollution and noise.

Supervisor Shamann Walton introduced the ordinance on Sep 15, 2026 with Supervisors Chan, Fielder and Chen; an urgency interim ordinance needs a four-fifths vote.

kalw.org

Federal

United States

H.R. 9442

Proposed Jun 24, 2026

Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act

A moratorium on construction of new data centers until safeguarding legislation is enacted, with DOE filing quarterly reports on AI data center water usage, wastewater discharge and thermal outputs.

Referred to House Energy and Commerce and House Foreign Affairs. Senate companion is S. 4214.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

S. 4214

Proposed Mar 25, 2026

Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act

Senate companion to H.R. 9442. Construction moratorium pending safeguarding legislation, with quarterly DOE reporting on AI data center water usage, wastewater discharge and thermal output.

Referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

U.S. Congress

State

Maine

2026 moratorium bill

Vetoed Apr 2026

Statewide data center moratorium

Would have imposed a statewide moratorium on new data center construction.

Passed the legislature in April 2026 and was vetoed by Governor Janet Mills, who cited a proposed data center at a former paper mill site in a town that had struggled since the mill closed. Maine came closer than any state to the first statewide ban before New York enacted one.

yahoo.com

State

Wisconsin

Draft moratorium package

Failed (introduced as SB 1061) Mar 23, 2026

Statewide moratorium conditioned on a protections package

Would have prohibited data center operation in Wisconsin until the legislature enacted a package of protections, including a statewide data center planning authority and bans on shifting data center energy costs, water costs and energy infrastructure costs onto residential customers.

The draft was introduced on Feb 26, 2026 as Senate Bill 1061 by Senators Larson and Carpenter and failed to pass pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 1 on Mar 23, 2026, when the session's general business floor period ended. The explicit ban on shifting water costs to households is unusual: most bills address electricity rates only.

docs.legis.wisconsin.gov

Rules that move the draw off the drinking water system without reducing the gallons.

State

Florida

CS/CS/SB 484

Enacted May 7, 2026

Florida Hyperscale Data Center Act

Requires data centers to use reclaimed water where it is environmentally, economically and technically feasible; creates a permitting framework to protect aquifers and local water supplies; classifies facilities at 50 MW peak demand or above as large-scale; and preserves local authority to deny projects or impose stricter standards.

Signed by Governor DeSantis on May 7, 2026, effective July 1, 2026. Also bars utilities from passing data center costs to residential and small-business ratepayers. The feasibility qualifier is the operative question: the statute does not say who decides what is feasible.

Florida Senate

Local

Memphis, Tennessee

Colossus Water Recycling Facility

Proposed 2026

Operator-funded greywater plant in place of aquifer withdrawal

An approximately $80 million wastewater recycling facility, a collaboration between xAI, the Tennessee Valley Authority and Nucor Steel, designed to process up to 13 million gallons of wastewater daily and to eliminate the need to draw from the Memphis Aquifer, with a stated goal of reducing aquifer strain by 9%.

The project was launched in October 2025 and paused in 2026 as xAI shifted resources to its Colossus 2 expansion. On Jun 24, 2026 Memphis Mayor Paul Young said xAI had committed to resume construction by the first quarter of 2027. Included as a tracked commitment, not a completed mitigation.

wwdmag.com

State

New York

S 10487

Proposed May 15, 2026

Enacts the "data center water stewardship and reuse act"

As introduced, would require large-capacity data centers (10 MW or more, or over 5 million gallons of potable water a year) to use non-potable recycled water for at least 60 percent of process and cooling water intake at initial build (new or expanded sites starting after January 1, 2028), and would require existing facilities to cut potable intake 50 percent from baseline by January 1, 2031 and 75 percent by January 1, 2035, using closed-loop or hybrid cooling with make-up water under 5 percent of system flow. DEC would certify water reuse plans before any local zoning or building permit, and facilities would publicly report a water-use effectiveness metric.

S 10487. Last official action May 15, 2026: REFERRED TO ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION.

nysenate.gov

State

Virginia

SB 417

Failed 2026 session

Treated wastewater condition on state grant funding

Would have conditioned state grant funding for data centers on the use of treated wastewater in cooling systems.

Did not pass before the crossover deadline; expected to be reconsidered in 2027.

MultiState

Credits, exemptions and grant conditions used to pull facilities toward reuse.

State

California

SB 887

Enacted Sep 21, 2026

CEQA: data centers lose categorical exemptions; leadership streamlining tied to recycled water and efficient cooling

Bars CEQA categorical exemptions for data center projects. A data center can be certified for environmental leadership streamlining only if, among other conditions, it uses recycled water and water-efficient technology or waterless cooling systems.

Governor Newsom approved SB 887 on September 21, 2026, as one of seven data center bills, and it was chaptered as Chapter 439, Statutes of 2026. The Senate concurred in Assembly amendments 29 to 8 on August 31.

leginfo.legislature.ca.gov

State

Nevada

Executive Order 2026-005

Enacted Sep 17, 2026

Nevada Standard for Responsible Data Center Development

Data center developers seeking a partial tax abatement from GOED must sign a Nevada Community Support Commitment that, at a minimum, requires the facility to meet the water standard for its location. GOED must publish the standard terms by November 6, 2026, in consultation with the State Engineer and the PUCN.

Governor Lombardo signed the order, which is dated the 17th day of September 2026 (some outlets reported September 16). It also requires full payment of the Local School Support Tax.

gov.nv.gov

Federal

United States

H.R. 2940

Proposed Apr 17, 2025

Advancing Water Reuse Act

A 30% investment tax credit for qualifying water reuse projects, defined to include installing, replacing or modifying an on-site water recycling system within a data center.

Referred to House Ways and Means. The same 30% credit reappears in H.R. 6900 and in §201 of H.R. 9419.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 9419 §201

Proposed Jun 24, 2026

Power and Water for Families Act of 2026

A 30% investment credit for qualifying water reuse projects, extended to cover replacing freshwater such as groundwater with recycled municipal water, and building or expanding municipal recycling systems to secure that supply.

The broadest of the three water-reuse credit vehicles: it reaches the municipal recycling infrastructure, not only equipment inside the fence line. Also aims to protect existing ratepayers from incremental infrastructure costs attributable to large-load facilities.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 6900 §24001

Proposed Dec 18, 2025

American Cost-of-Living legislation (water reuse credit)

Authorizes a 30% tax credit for qualifying water reuse projects, including on-site water recycling systems within data centers.

Referred to House Ways and Means and House Energy and Commerce. Companion language to H.R. 2940.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

S. 3737

Proposed Mar 17, 2026

GROW SMART Act

Amends the Reclamation States Emergency Drought Relief Act of 1991 to fund voluntary water partnership agreements, and names data centers among the industrial and commercial entities eligible to be qualified applicants alongside irrigation districts.

Committee hearings held March 17, 2026 before Senate Energy and Natural Resources. Would put data centers and agricultural water users inside the same Bureau of Reclamation transaction framework rather than in competition for the same supply.

U.S. Congress

State

Virginia

SB 30 / HB 30

Proposed 2026 session

Budget amendments conditioning data center tax treatment

Would condition the data center tax credit on investments in environmental management. The House version would eliminate the sales tax exemption.

Budget vehicles rather than standalone environmental bills, which makes them harder to veto in isolation.

MultiState

Instruments that commission an answer rather than impose a rule.

State

Nebraska

Executive Order 26-17

Enacted Jul 21, 2026

Data center incentive suspension and DWEE water task force

Bars new data center approvals under the ImagiNE Nebraska Act, requires DED, Revenue and DWEE to jointly review data center proposals for impacts on land, water and electricity, and creates a DWEE data center task force. A 17-member task force appointed August 19 will evaluate impacts on water resources, grids and local infrastructure.

The Governor's press release announcing the signing is dated July 21, 2026; some outlets reported it as signed July 20. It predates the September 9 refresh but was not in the tracker.

governor.nebraska.gov

Local

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Mayoral executive order

Enacted Sep 16, 2026

Data center task force

Creates a task force to study data center impacts on energy, water use, public health, neighborhoods and city costs and recommend regulatory changes.

Mayor Cherelle Parker signed the executive order on Sep 16, 2026; the task force includes the Water Department and must report by Jun 30, 2027. The order approves no data center.

fox29.com

Local

Pima County, Arizona

Health Department data center review

Enacted Aug 31, 2026

Twenty-one impact pathways, water among them

The Pima County Health Department, working with researchers at Johns Hopkins University, published a public health review identifying 21 pathways by which data centers could affect health across a facility life cycle, covering air, water, heat and disease. The framework is advisory and is written for decision makers approving, building and operating data centers.

The department noted that the county is both water vulnerable and heat vulnerable. The review sets no reporting duty and publishes no water volume. On the day it was released the Arizona attorney general cited it in calling for a temporary statewide pause on data center approvals, which is a statement rather than an instrument and is not recorded here as a measure.

kold.com

Regional

Potomac River Basin: MD, VA, WV, PA, DC

ICPRB data center water analysis

Enacted 2026

Basin-scale assessment of data center demand

The Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin maintains an assessment of data center water use in the basin that supplies the Washington region.

Regional load forecasts underlying the work project a 35% increase for the Allegheny Power service area covering Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and a 135% increase for Dominion's Virginia territory, with data centers named as the primary driver. The Commission held a joint public webinar on data centers with the Susquehanna and Delaware river basin commissions.

potomacriver.org

State

Virginia

Eastern Virginia groundwater study

Enacted Jul 28, 2026

State study urging authority to reject industrial withdrawal permits

The long-delayed state groundwater study found declines are likely in a critical eastern Virginia aquifer from population growth and industrial use, and recommended that regulators be given more authority to reject industrial water withdrawal permits, to require applicants to examine alternative water sources, and to act against users drawing more than they should.

Published in the largest data center market in the world. The recommendations are not yet law; they set the agenda for the next Virginia session.

VPM

State

New Jersey

A3966

Proposed Mar 16, 2026

Requires DEP to conduct study of short and long term effects of water use by large-scale data centers.

As amended in committee (first reprint), would require DEP within one year to evaluate the short term (3 year) and long term (7 year) effects of water use by large-scale data centers, with thresholds set by DEP and BPU, on drinking water, wastewater systems, and the environment, and to report findings and any legislative recommendations to the Governor and Legislature within 15 months. DEP could require data center owners and water and wastewater utilities to submit information for the study.

A3966. Last official action Mar 16, 2026: Reported out of Asm. Comm. with Amendments, and Referred to Assembly Appropriations Committee.

njleg.state.nj.us

State

New Jersey

S 4400

Proposed Jun 4, 2026

Requires DEP to conduct study of short and long term effects of water use by large-scale data centers.

As introduced, would require DEP within one year to evaluate the short term (3 year) and long term (7 year) effects of water use by large-scale data centers, with size thresholds set by DEP in consultation with BPU, and to report findings and any legislative recommendations to the Governor and Legislature within 15 months. DEP could require data center owners and water and wastewater utilities to submit information, including total annual and monthly water use.

S 4400. Last official action Jun 4, 2026: Introduced in the Senate, Referred to Senate Environment and Energy Committee. Senate companion of A3966.

njleg.state.nj.us

State

New Jersey

S 1213

Proposed Jan 13, 2026

Establishes NJ Water Data Center at public institution of higher education; appropriates $1 million.

As introduced, establishes a 'New Jersey Water Data Center' at a public college to collect and publish performance, budget and affordability data on drinking water, wastewater and stormwater systems, with $1 million appropriated. It contains no requirements for data center facilities.

S 1213. Last official action Jan 13, 2026: Introduced in the Senate, Referred to Senate Environment and Energy Committee. This bill does not regulate data center facilities; it concerns a clearinghouse for water utility data.

njleg.state.nj.us

State

Texas

2026 interim charges

Proposed Jun 24, 2026

Legislative review of data center water demand

House Speaker Burrows and Lieutenant Governor Patrick placed data center water demand in the 2026 interim charges for five legislative panels, including House Natural Resources and the Senate Committee on Water, Agriculture and Rural Affairs, to draft recommendations ahead of the 90th Legislature.

The Texas Water Development Board has acknowledged it has no way to track groundwater pumping by data centers in counties without a groundwater conservation district, which is the case in more than half of Texas counties. The Senate Committee on Water, Agriculture and Rural Affairs took up the charge on September 1, 2026; Chairman Charles Perry said he intends to carry a standalone bill prohibiting evaporative cooling systems, and the committee pressed for monthly rather than annual water use reporting, water source disclosure and drought contingency plans (Holland and Knight, September 2026).

KWTX

Federal

United States

H.R. 9372

Proposed Jun 25, 2026

Data Infrastructure Energy Measurement and Standards Act

NIST, with DOE, would run a measurement research program to develop best practices, definitions, methodologies and technical standards for measuring water use by data centers, including water use from AI training and inference.

Ordered to be reported in the nature of a substitute (amended) by the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. The furthest-advanced federal bill of the set, and the one that addresses the measurement gap directly rather than legislating around it.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 8033 §5

Proposed Mar 20, 2026

No Harm Data Centers Act

Directs EPA to seek an agreement with the National Academies to assess data center impacts on the environment and public health, including water consumption and water supply, and to recommend mitigations.

Referred to House Energy and Commerce. Section 2 of H.R. 9629 carries the same National Academies assignment.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 9629 §2

Proposed Jul 9, 2026

Protecting Communities from Data Center Impacts Act of 2026

EPA would seek an agreement with the National Academies for an assessment of data center impacts on the environment and public health, including water consumption and water supply.

Referred to House Energy and Commerce. Duplicates §5 of H.R. 8033 as a standalone vehicle.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 7858 §3

Proposed Mar 5, 2026

Data Center Community Impact Act

DOE, with EPA, Commerce, FERC and CEQ, would study data center effects on communities of color and low-income communities, including water consumed, effects on local supplies and drought-prone regions, and how cooling processes affect wastewater systems.

Referred to House Energy and Commerce. The only federal bill in the set that pairs the water question with a distributional one.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

S. 3269 §2

Proposed Apr 15, 2026

Liquid Cooling for AI Act of 2025

GAO technology assessment of liquid cooling for AI compute clusters, evaluating coolant options including water, water-glycol and engineered fluids, plus materials compatibility, corrosion control, biological growth mitigation, filtration and fluid management.

Referred to Senate Energy and Natural Resources. Section 3 of H.R. 5332 requires a similar but narrower GAO review.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 5332 §3

Proposed 2026

Liquid Cooling for AI Act of 2026

GAO technology assessment focused on liquid cooling systems for AI compute clusters and high-performance computing facilities.

Referred to House Science, Space, and Technology and House Energy and Commerce. House counterpart to S. 3269.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 5227

Proposed 2026

Unleashing Low-Cost Rural AI

A DOE study of the impact of artificial intelligence and data center site growth on U.S. energy supply resources.

Referred to House Science, Space, and Technology. Water enters through the energy-supply analysis rather than as a direct subject.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

S. 4727

Proposed Jun 9, 2026

Artificial Intelligence Environmental Impacts Act of 2026

The Environmental Protection Agency would study the full lifecycle impacts of artificial intelligence, including energy and water use, effects on water quality, water use and high-temperature water discharge, the use of chemical biocides, and local water and energy stress during extreme weather events. The National Institute of Standards and Technology would convene a consortium on those impacts, and the agency would develop a reporting system covering resource consumption and intensity with respect to water use.

Introduced by Senator Markey with four cosponsors and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. The findings cite a Department of Energy projection that hyperscale facilities will consume between 16 billion and 33 billion gallons a year by 2028, which is a projection rather than a measurement. The reporting system the bill would build is voluntary, so it would not close the gap between what is required and what is returned.

govinfo.gov

Federal

United States

H.R. 10041

Proposed Aug 3, 2026

Smart Data Center Policy Act

Directs the Secretary of Commerce to study, within 180 days, the impact of siting data centers near military installations, rail hubs, airports and industrial zones on the energy grid, environment and water system, and to identify locations with the water infrastructure capacity to host them.

Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA) introduced the bill on Aug 3, 2026; it was referred to the Transportation and Infrastructure, Armed Services, and Energy and Commerce committees.

govinfo.gov

State

Louisiana

HCR 61

Failed Jun 9, 2025

WATER/RESOURCES: Creates a special task force to study the interagency consultation process for data centers to ensure more complete natural resource planning

As adopted by the House (re-reengrossed), would have created an Interagency Data Center Consultation and Assessment Group to assess current and future data centers' long-term use of water resources, starting January 1, 2026 and reporting to the Legislature by February 27, 2027. The Senate never adopted it.

HCR 61. Last official action Jun 9, 2025: Senate: read by title and returned to the Calendar, subject to call; 2025 Regular Session adjourned June 12, 2025 without Senate adoption.

legis.la.gov

State

New Jersey

A 5892

Failed Jun 27, 2025

Requires DEP to conduct study of short and long term effects of water use by large-scale data centers.

As introduced (221st Legislature), would have required DEP within one year to evaluate the short-term (3-year) and long-term (7-year) effects of water use by large-scale data centers on drinking water, wastewater and the environment, and report to the Governor and Legislature within 15 months.

A 5892. Last official action Jun 27, 2025: Introduced, Referred to Assembly Environment, Natural Resources, and Solid Waste Committee; no further action before the 2024-2025 session ended. Prior-session version of A3966 and S4400.

njleg.state.nj.us

How a large water user is billed, and who absorbs the cost of new capacity.

Local

Columbus, Ohio

Proposed rate ordinance

Passed by City Council Sep 28, 2026

Water rates for high-load, high-volume users

Requires the Director of Columbus Water and Power to establish peak rates or other fees and charges for large-load, high-volume industrial and manufacturing users, part of a council package aimed at data centers' water and energy costs; a companion proposal would require a water conservation plan for data centers and other large developments.

City Council passed Ordinance 2560-2026 on its consent agenda on Sep 28, 2026, after its first reading in mid-September. The ordinance directs the utility to set the rates and does not set them itself. No vote on the companion conservation plan proposal was located.

columbus.legistar.com

Federal

United States

Water Cost Accountability Act discussion draft

Proposed Hearing Sep 3, 2026

Ratepayers would stop paying to connect data centers

States receiving drinking water grant funds would have to prohibit public water systems from billing any customer other than a large-scale data center for the incremental cost of connecting or expanding capacity to serve that data center, and the Environmental Protection Agency would report to Congress on the sources of water used by qualified data centers, defined as facilities whose water intake averages more than 200,000 gallons a day.

A discussion draft, not an introduced bill. The House Energy and Commerce Committee took it up on September 3, 2026 in a legislative hearing on drinking water systems and ratepayers. The 200,000 gallons a day threshold is the first federal attempt to define a data center by its water intake rather than by its electrical load, which is the definition every other federal bill on this tracker uses.

energycommerce.house.gov

State

Iowa

HF 2261

Failed 2026 session

Separate water customer class for large loads

Would have required water utilities serving facilities that need 20 MW of power or more to create a separate customer class with distinct rates.

Reported as unlikely to advance. Notable for defining a water customer class by electrical demand rather than water volume.

MultiState

The counterweight: instruments that insulate a data center permit from challenge.

State

Texas

Government Code 552.1331 (H.B. 872, 87th Legislature)

Enacted Effective Sep 1, 2021

Smart meter records exception used to withhold data center water use

Information a government-operated utility collects through an advanced metering system for usage, services and billing is excepted from disclosure under the Public Information Act. The utility must release the data to the customer it belongs to, and to nobody else.

Written to keep household smart meter readings away from payday lenders, not to cover industrial customers. San Antonio Water System invoked it in 2026 to deny a records request for three years of water use at 36 area data centers. The bill's author, Representative Diego Bernal, said the utility is not applying the law as he intended. This provision is the counterweight sitting underneath every Texas disclosure proposal on this page: a state can require reporting and still have the resulting numbers withheld.

ksat.com

Federal

United States

H.R. 8037

Proposed Mar 24, 2026

Protect American AI Act of 2026

A civil action over an environmental review under the Clean Water Act would not affect the validity of a permit issued for a data center. A court finding a violation would remand to the agency rather than vacate, and the agency would keep processing applications.

The counterweight to every disclosure bill in this table: it moves in the opposite direction, insulating data center water permits from judicial vacatur. Referred to House Energy and Commerce and House Judiciary.

U.S. Congress

State

Minnesota

HF4153

Failed Mar 12, 2026

Criteria for preapplication evaluations of water appropriations for data centers modified, data centers' electricity sales exempted in calculating a utility's

As introduced, would narrow Minnesota's existing data center water preapplication evaluation (Minn. Stat. 103G.265, subd. 5) so it applies only when a data center's net increase in consumptive use exceeds 100 million gallons per year after subtracting documented reductions by other users of the same source, and would exempt qualified large-scale data centers that filed local permit applications on or before January 1, 2025 or are located in an eligible community. The rest of the bill concerns electricity (solar standard, fees, sales tax exemptions).

HF4153. Last official action Mar 12, 2026: Introduction and first reading, referred to Energy Finance and Policy (only action; 94th Legislature 2026 session adjourned May 18, 2026). The bill would loosen, not tighten, the existing data center water review.

revisor.mn.gov

State

Minnesota

HF4990

Failed Apr 16, 2026

Criteria for preapplication evaluations of water appropriations for certain data centers modified, data centers' electricity sales exempted in calculating

As introduced, would narrow the existing data center water preapplication evaluation (Minn. Stat. 103G.265, subd. 5) to data centers whose net increase in consumptive use exceeds 100 million gallons per year after offsets by other users of the same source, and would exempt qualified large-scale data centers that file local permit applications on or before January 1, 2035 or are in an eligible community. Other sections concern electricity, fees, taxes, and generation redundancy.

HF4990. Last official action Apr 16, 2026: Introduction and first reading, referred to Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy (only action; 2026 session adjourned May 18, 2026). The bill would loosen, not tighten, the existing data center water review.

revisor.mn.gov

State

Ohio

NPDES General Permit OHD000001

Withdrawn Jul 21, 2026

Statewide discharge permit for data centers, withdrawn

Would have covered wastewater and stormwater discharges from data centers statewide under one general permit, including non-contact cooling water and low-volume wastewater such as cooling tower blowdown, in place of facility-by-facility permits.

Ohio EPA issued the draft for public notice on Oct 31, 2025 and received more than 7,000 comments. On Jul 21, 2026 the agency said it would not finalize the general permit and would handle data center discharges through individual NPDES permits.

abc6onyourside.com

Federal water regulation

Twenty-three bills, one law

Congress has generally deferred to state primacy over intrastate water allocation, which is why the binding rules in this subject are written in state capitols and city halls. That has not stopped Congress from filing bills. Twenty-three measures in the 119th Congress touch data center water, and exactly one has become law: a provision of the FY2026 defense authorization that requires the Defense Department to estimate water use for data centers on military installations. Everything else below sits in committee. The groups are ordered by what each would actually do.

Figure 4

MEASURES BY QUARTER2007–2024522025 Q162025 Q212025 Q352025 Q4502026 Q1372026 Q2972026 Q312027 Q1Five measures in eighteen years, then 184 in 2026.
Counted from this tracker’s own dataset, by the date each measure was introduced, adopted or vetoed. The forward-dated bar is Virginia’s waterworks reporting rule, which takes effect in January 2027.

One federal water provision has been enacted. It reaches data centers on military installations and nowhere else.

P.L. 119-60 §1531 Enacted Dec 18, 2025

National Defense Authorization Act for FY2026

Expands the Department of Defense High Performance Computing Roadmap to estimate the additional electricity and water usage, and the anticipated effects on surrounding communities, from data centers built or expanded on military installations.

The only federal data center water provision enacted to date. It reaches DOD installations only, and the estimates are not required if producing them would delay the roadmap's triennial update.

U.S. Congress

The largest group. Every one of these would require operators, utilities or agencies to publish water figures that are not collected today. None has passed.

S. 4784 §1632 Proposed Jul 27, 2026

National Defense Authorization Act for FY2027

Broadens the DOD roadmap water estimates to cover data centers supporting military operations and those still to be built or expanded, and raises the update frequency from triennial to annual.

Motion to proceed to consideration made in the Senate July 27, 2026. Amends the FY2026 provision enacted as P.L. 119-60 §1531.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 9825 Proposed Jul 22, 2026

Data Center Water and Energy Transparency Act of 2026

Operators of data centers with peak demand of 25 MW or more would file an annual state report giving total water use and water source for each month, annual average PUE and WUE, and five-year projected water use with reduction proposals.

New or expanded facilities would report five-year projections before operation. Where a state lacks authority to collect the information, reporting runs to DOE and EPA instead. Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

U.S. Congress

S. 4213 Proposed Mar 25, 2026

Data Center Water and Energy Transparency Act of 2026

Senate companion to H.R. 9825. Annual state reporting of monthly water use and source, average PUE and WUE, and five-year projections, for operators at 25 MW peak demand or above.

Referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Names EPA, DOE and the Department of Agriculture as recipients of operator reports where state authority is absent.

GovTrack

H.R. 6984 Proposed Jan 8, 2026

Data Center Transparency Act

EPA would report to Congress and publish, within six months of enactment and every three months after, the total water consumed by U.S. data centers, how much they reuse, and their effect on local water systems.

The local-effects reporting is unusually specific: potable water availability, whether the facility increased demand on local utilities, service disruptions for other customers, changes in residential water rates, and the type and amount of Clean Water Act pollutants discharged.

U.S. Congress

S. 3852 Proposed Feb 11, 2026

GRID Act

DOE would set requirements for data centers to publish estimated utility usage, and both operators and utilities would publicly disclose any transaction or agreement between them.

Defines “utility” to include public water systems under the Safe Drinking Water Act and treatment works under the Clean Water Act, which brings water contracts inside the disclosure duty. Aimed at the nondisclosure agreements that keep municipal water deals private.

U.S. Congress

S. 5054 Proposed Jul 21, 2026

Data Center Tax Accountability

Would exempt AI data centers from bonus depreciation and require operators to submit information on electricity and water use.

Referred to the Senate Committee on Finance. Ties the water reporting duty to a tax consequence rather than an environmental permit.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 8488 Proposed Apr 23, 2026

AI Data Center Site Selection Transparency Act of 2026

Not later than 180 days before taking a definitive step to establish an AI-focused data center, a covered entity would disclose to every relevant local elected official and to the public, in a press release, the site location and the estimated resources needed and estimated environmental impact of the facility. That impact analysis must be conducted by an independent third party funded by the developer. The bill defines environmental AI impact to include effects on water quality, and it limits non-disclosure agreements, barring them entirely with a government entity or over public resources.

Introduced by Representative McIver with eight cosponsors and referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The bill defines an AI-focused data center partly by whether it requires electrical load, cooling capacity or water usage materially attributable to artificial intelligence operations. A violation would be treated as an unfair or deceptive act under the Federal Trade Commission Act. What it produces is an estimate published before construction, not metered use after it.

govinfo.gov

H.R. 10005 Proposed Introduced Jul 30, 2026

Data Center Resource Disclosure Act

The Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information would conduct an annual survey asking the operator of each U.S. data center to report, on a voluntary basis, its energy consumption and its water consumption for the preceding one-year period, publish the results on the NTIA website as an interactive map, identify by name each data center that did not provide complete information, and report to Congress with recommendations on data center regulation.

Introduced by Representative Scholten with Representatives Subramanyam and Grijalva and referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. Reporting is voluntary, so the bill produces a survey rather than a register, and its enforcement mechanism is publication of who declined to answer. Texas already runs a mandatory survey that 83 percent of data centers ignored, which is the reference case for what a voluntary federal survey is likely to return.

govinfo.gov

H.R. 10139 Proposed Aug 24, 2026

Ratepayer Bill of Rights Act of 2026

Covers data centers with at least 50 MW peak demand or 100,000 gallons per day of water withdrawal. Requires disclosure of projected and actual water use, sources and wastewater discharge before operations and every three months, an independent assessment that enough water remains for households and agriculture before a final water-service commitment, payment of all project-driven water costs, no priority over households in a water emergency, and an independent assessment before drawing from an overdrawn aquifer.

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) introduced the bill on Aug 24, 2026; it was referred to the Energy and Commerce and Education and Workforce committees. FERC, DOE, EPA and Labor would each issue rules within their jurisdictions.

govinfo.gov

H.R. 9019 Proposed May 22, 2026

Public Oversight of Water and Energy Reporting Act

Would direct the Secretary of Energy, with EPA, to report to Congress two years after enactment and annually after on the electricity and water used by covered data centers, including the water each receives from a public water system.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) introduced the bill on May 22, 2026 and it was referred to the Energy and Commerce Committee. It places no reporting duty directly on operators; the Department of Energy compiles the figures.

govinfo.gov

Three separate vehicles carry the same 30% investment credit for on-site water recycling, and one extends it to the municipal recycling systems that supply it.

H.R. 2940 Proposed Apr 17, 2025

Advancing Water Reuse Act

A 30% investment tax credit for qualifying water reuse projects, defined to include installing, replacing or modifying an on-site water recycling system within a data center.

Referred to House Ways and Means. The same 30% credit reappears in H.R. 6900 and in §201 of H.R. 9419.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 9419 §201 Proposed Jun 24, 2026

Power and Water for Families Act of 2026

A 30% investment credit for qualifying water reuse projects, extended to cover replacing freshwater such as groundwater with recycled municipal water, and building or expanding municipal recycling systems to secure that supply.

The broadest of the three water-reuse credit vehicles: it reaches the municipal recycling infrastructure, not only equipment inside the fence line. Also aims to protect existing ratepayers from incremental infrastructure costs attributable to large-load facilities.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 6900 §24001 Proposed Dec 18, 2025

American Cost-of-Living legislation (water reuse credit)

Authorizes a 30% tax credit for qualifying water reuse projects, including on-site water recycling systems within data centers.

Referred to House Ways and Means and House Energy and Commerce. Companion language to H.R. 2940.

U.S. Congress

S. 3737 Proposed Mar 17, 2026

GROW SMART Act

Amends the Reclamation States Emergency Drought Relief Act of 1991 to fund voluntary water partnership agreements, and names data centers among the industrial and commercial entities eligible to be qualified applicants alongside irrigation districts.

Committee hearings held March 17, 2026 before Senate Energy and Natural Resources. Would put data centers and agricultural water users inside the same Bureau of Reclamation transaction framework rather than in competition for the same supply.

U.S. Congress

Two companion bills would halt new data center construction pending safeguards, with quarterly federal reporting on water use, wastewater discharge and thermal output.

H.R. 9442 Proposed Jun 24, 2026

Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act

A moratorium on construction of new data centers until safeguarding legislation is enacted, with DOE filing quarterly reports on AI data center water usage, wastewater discharge and thermal outputs.

Referred to House Energy and Commerce and House Foreign Affairs. Senate companion is S. 4214.

U.S. Congress

S. 4214 Proposed Mar 25, 2026

Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act

Senate companion to H.R. 9442. Construction moratorium pending safeguarding legislation, with quarterly DOE reporting on AI data center water usage, wastewater discharge and thermal output.

Referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

U.S. Congress

Measurement bills. One would have NIST build the standards for measuring data center water at all, which is the gap underneath every other bill in this section.

H.R. 9372 Proposed Jun 25, 2026

Data Infrastructure Energy Measurement and Standards Act

NIST, with DOE, would run a measurement research program to develop best practices, definitions, methodologies and technical standards for measuring water use by data centers, including water use from AI training and inference.

Ordered to be reported in the nature of a substitute (amended) by the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. The furthest-advanced federal bill of the set, and the one that addresses the measurement gap directly rather than legislating around it.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 8033 §5 Proposed Mar 20, 2026

No Harm Data Centers Act

Directs EPA to seek an agreement with the National Academies to assess data center impacts on the environment and public health, including water consumption and water supply, and to recommend mitigations.

Referred to House Energy and Commerce. Section 2 of H.R. 9629 carries the same National Academies assignment.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 9629 §2 Proposed Jul 9, 2026

Protecting Communities from Data Center Impacts Act of 2026

EPA would seek an agreement with the National Academies for an assessment of data center impacts on the environment and public health, including water consumption and water supply.

Referred to House Energy and Commerce. Duplicates §5 of H.R. 8033 as a standalone vehicle.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 7858 §3 Proposed Mar 5, 2026

Data Center Community Impact Act

DOE, with EPA, Commerce, FERC and CEQ, would study data center effects on communities of color and low-income communities, including water consumed, effects on local supplies and drought-prone regions, and how cooling processes affect wastewater systems.

Referred to House Energy and Commerce. The only federal bill in the set that pairs the water question with a distributional one.

U.S. Congress

S. 3269 §2 Proposed Apr 15, 2026

Liquid Cooling for AI Act of 2025

GAO technology assessment of liquid cooling for AI compute clusters, evaluating coolant options including water, water-glycol and engineered fluids, plus materials compatibility, corrosion control, biological growth mitigation, filtration and fluid management.

Referred to Senate Energy and Natural Resources. Section 3 of H.R. 5332 requires a similar but narrower GAO review.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 5332 §3 Proposed 2026

Liquid Cooling for AI Act of 2026

GAO technology assessment focused on liquid cooling systems for AI compute clusters and high-performance computing facilities.

Referred to House Science, Space, and Technology and House Energy and Commerce. House counterpart to S. 3269.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 5227 Proposed 2026

Unleashing Low-Cost Rural AI

A DOE study of the impact of artificial intelligence and data center site growth on U.S. energy supply resources.

Referred to House Science, Space, and Technology. Water enters through the energy-supply analysis rather than as a direct subject.

U.S. Congress

S. 4727 Proposed Jun 9, 2026

Artificial Intelligence Environmental Impacts Act of 2026

The Environmental Protection Agency would study the full lifecycle impacts of artificial intelligence, including energy and water use, effects on water quality, water use and high-temperature water discharge, the use of chemical biocides, and local water and energy stress during extreme weather events. The National Institute of Standards and Technology would convene a consortium on those impacts, and the agency would develop a reporting system covering resource consumption and intensity with respect to water use.

Introduced by Senator Markey with four cosponsors and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. The findings cite a Department of Energy projection that hyperscale facilities will consume between 16 billion and 33 billion gallons a year by 2028, which is a projection rather than a measurement. The reporting system the bill would build is voluntary, so it would not close the gap between what is required and what is returned.

govinfo.gov

H.R. 10041 Proposed Aug 3, 2026

Smart Data Center Policy Act

Directs the Secretary of Commerce to study, within 180 days, the impact of siting data centers near military installations, rail hubs, airports and industrial zones on the energy grid, environment and water system, and to identify locations with the water infrastructure capacity to host them.

Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA) introduced the bill on Aug 3, 2026; it was referred to the Transportation and Infrastructure, Armed Services, and Energy and Commerce committees.

govinfo.gov

The counterweight to everything above. It moves in the opposite direction, keeping a Clean Water Act challenge from voiding a data center permit.

H.R. 8037 Proposed Mar 24, 2026

Protect American AI Act of 2026

A civil action over an environmental review under the Clean Water Act would not affect the validity of a permit issued for a data center. A court finding a violation would remand to the agency rather than vacate, and the agency would keep processing applications.

The counterweight to every disclosure bill in this table: it moves in the opposite direction, insulating data center water permits from judicial vacatur. Referred to House Energy and Commerce and House Judiciary.

U.S. Congress

Instruments that alter where the water comes from rather than how it is reported, from barring public water system supply outright to opening federal reservoir storage.

H.R. 9777 Proposed Jul 20, 2026

Protecting Ratepayers Act

Would bar any private entity from building, owning or operating a new or existing data center unless all of its water, including backup water, comes from an on-site source or some other source separate from the public water system.

The most restrictive water instrument introduced at any level of government. Against the CRS finding that public water systems supply an estimated 97% of U.S. data center water, this would require the sector to re-source essentially all of its supply.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 9497 Passed House Sep 16, 2026

Water Resources Development Act of 2026

As ordered to be reported in July 2026, would amend U.S. Army Corps of Engineers water supply authority, which governs whether federal reservoir storage can be made available to users including data centers.

The House passed the Water Resources Development Act of 2026 under suspension of the rules on Sep 16, 2026, 415 to 9 (Roll no. 313), after the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee reported it on Sep 3 (H. Rept. 119-795); the Senate received it on Sep 17. The engrossed text keeps Sec. 205(b), which directs the Army Corps to report within one year on the effects of new commercial and industrial water users on Corps water supply and water conservation projects. The text does not use the words data center.

govinfo.gov

H.R. 10321 Proposed Sep 8, 2026

Responsible Data Center Siting Act of 2026

Directs the Secretary of Energy to set best practices for siting data centers that consider the impacts of a data center's water use, including on water availability to local residents and the surrounding environment, and impacts on water quality.

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA) introduced the bill on Sep 8, 2026 with six cosponsors as part of a four-bill package; it was referred to the Energy and Commerce Committee.

govinfo.gov

H.R. 10465 Proposed Sep 16, 2026

Public Lands Accountability Act

Would require the Bureau of Land Management to consider a project's impact on regional water supply before authorizing a hyperscale data center on public lands, bar categorical exclusions for such projects, and require a separate environmental review with public involvement when a right-of-way is changed to allow a data center.

Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) introduced the bill on Sep 16, 2026; it was referred to the Natural Resources and Agriculture committees. The introduced text requires each environmental impact statement for a hyperscale data center on public lands to analyze the water expected to be consumed by its cooling system and by on-site power generation over 10 years, and its effect on the region's short- and long-term water supply, drought resilience and water source.

govinfo.gov

Rate and customer-class instruments.

Water Cost Accountability Act discussion draft Proposed Hearing Sep 3, 2026

Ratepayers would stop paying to connect data centers

States receiving drinking water grant funds would have to prohibit public water systems from billing any customer other than a large-scale data center for the incremental cost of connecting or expanding capacity to serve that data center, and the Environmental Protection Agency would report to Congress on the sources of water used by qualified data centers, defined as facilities whose water intake averages more than 200,000 gallons a day.

A discussion draft, not an introduced bill. The House Energy and Commerce Committee took it up on September 3, 2026 in a legislative hearing on drinking water systems and ratepayers. The 200,000 gallons a day threshold is the first federal attempt to define a data center by its water intake rather than by its electrical load, which is the definition every other federal bill on this tracker uses.

energycommerce.house.gov

The ledger

Every water use, with the basis stated

Withdrawal, consumption and application are three different quantities. Most of the arguing in this subject comes from comparing one to another. Each row below states its basis and its year. Rows are comparable only within the same basis and the same scope, and the column does not sum.

U.S. data centers: direct cooling 17.4 billion gal
reference

Consumption 2023Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Up from 5.6 billion gallons in 2014. Direct use only: water consumed at the facility for thermal regulation, excluding off-site power generation and hardware manufacture.

U.S. data centers: indirect, at the power plant 211 billion gal
12× data center cooling

Consumption 2023Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Roughly twelve times the direct figure. This is water consumed generating the electricity the facilities run on, and it moves with the generation mix, not with the cooling system.

U.S. golf course irrigation ~531 billion gal
31× data center cooling

Applied 2024Golf Course Superintendents Association of America

Roughly 1.63 million acre-feet applied across U.S. golf facilities, about 1.5 billion gallons a day. Down about 31% since 2005, roughly two-thirds of the drop from more efficient irrigation, drought-tolerant grasses and smaller irrigated footprints.

California almonds 1.53–1.79 trillion gal
88× data center cooling

Applied 2024California Water Impact Network

Between 4.7 and 5.5 million acre-feet a year depending on water availability and bearing acreage. Other analyses using California Department of Water Resources crop data put almonds and pistachios together at about 2.1 million acre-feet, or roughly 9% of the state's agricultural water. The two figures rest on different methods and should not be reconciled by splitting the difference.

Total U.S. freshwater withdrawals ~322 billion gal/day
different basis and time unit

Withdrawal 2020U.S. Congress

The denominator. Withdrawal, not consumption: most of this volume is returned to its source. Data center direct consumption is estimated at approximately 2% of total U.S. water consumption.

Every state's own ledger sits in its file above.

Architecture

What actually changes the number

Every projection in this subject is a bet on cooling architecture. The Houston Advanced Research Center's 2030 range for Texas runs from 29 to 161 billion gallons, and the variable that decides where it lands is which of the systems below gets built.

Figure 2

100 GALLONS WITHDRAWNWATER USE EFFECTIVENESSOpen-loop evaporativethe industry baseline, and thearchitecture behind almost everyalarming projection75% evaporates to atmosphere25% returns to source1.8 L/kWhClosed-loop liquidfilled once, recirculated, heatrejected through dry coolersmakeup water onlynear zero in operationDry coolingheat rejected to air, at an energypenalty that rises with ambienttemperatureno water loopover 90% reduction
The same withdrawal produces wildly different consumption depending on how heat leaves the building. One operator’s air-cooled Texas facility used 10,000 gallons across all of 2024, while the same operator’s older Iowa facility used 1.3 billion gallons in the same year. This is why the Houston Advanced Research Center’s 2030 range for Texas runs from 29 to 161 billion gallons: the spread is a bet on which of these gets built.

Open-loop evaporative cooling

Legacy

Water use effectiveness~1.8 L/kWh

The industry-average baseline and the architecture behind almost every alarming projection. Between 70% and 80% of withdrawn water is lost to evaporation. A 100 MW facility on this architecture consumes on the order of 528,000 gallons a day.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Closed-loop liquid, direct-to-chip

Current build standard

Water use effectivenessnear zero in operation

A sealed circuit filled once and recirculated, with heat rejected through dry coolers rather than evaporation. Microsoft states that all of its data centers designed from August 2024 forward use closed-loop architecture, with first deployments in Phoenix and Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, avoiding more than 125 million liters per year per facility. Oracle's 2026 AI facilities in New Mexico, Michigan, Texas and Wisconsin use the same approach. The Abilene, Texas campus took roughly a one-million-gallon initial fill and then periodic maintenance top-ups.

Microsoft

Air cooling in a suitable climate

Proven

Water use effectivenesssite-dependent, can be negligible

The sharpest available illustration of how much architecture matters: one operator's air-cooled Texas facility used 10,000 gallons across all of 2024, while the same operator's older Iowa facility used 1.3 billion gallons in the same year. Five orders of magnitude, same company, same year.

SAVRN

Dry cooling

Proven

Water use effectivenessover 90% reduction

Rejects heat to air rather than to evaporation. Reduces water consumption by more than 90% against the evaporative baseline, at an energy penalty that rises with ambient temperature. Hybrid systems that switch between modes cut annual evaporative losses by up to 75%.

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Reclaimed and recycled municipal water

Policy favorite

Water use effectivenessshifts the source, not the volume

Uses treated wastewater effluent rather than potable supply. It does not reduce the gallons; it removes them from the drinking water system. This is the mechanism Florida's SB 484 requires where feasible, that Virginia's failed SB 417 would have funded, and that three separate federal bills would subsidize with a 30% investment credit.

Florida Senate

Single-phase immersion

Emerging

Water use effectivenessclosed circuit

Roughly 47% of the installed liquid-cooling base. Supports very high rack densities. Deployed mainly in cryptocurrency mining, specialized HPC clusters, edge AI and pilot hyperscale installations.

SAVRN

Two-phase immersion

Supply-constrained

Water use effectivenessclosed circuit

3M discontinued production of the principal fluid in 2025 citing PFAS concerns. Remaining alternatives run $500 to $1,000 per gallon, and NVIDIA has not endorsed the approach for Blackwell-generation GPUs, citing long-term reliability and component warranty. Published as a constraint, not a solution.

SAVRN

Figure 3

LITERS OF WATER PER KILOWATT-HOUR00.511.520.19–0.27REPORTED HYPERSCALER FLEETSAWS 0.19 · Google 0.20 · Meta 0.20 · Microsoft 0.271.8Industry average baselineMicrosoft, early 2000s: 2.3roughly 10x
Water use effectiveness measures the building only. It excludes the power plant, which consumes roughly twelve times more, so a low score here is necessary and not sufficient. Every projection built on 1.8 prices an architecture the industry is already leaving.

Reported water use effectiveness, liters per kilowatt-hour

Industry average baseline 1.8L/kWh Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and DOE FEMP benchmark.
AWS global fleet 0.19L/kWh Roughly one-tenth of the industry baseline.
Google 0.20L/kWh About nine times better than the baseline.
Meta, recent buildings 0.20L/kWh Recent construction only; older estate differs.

Who is publishing

The organizations, and what each one is asking for

Data center water is now an organized field. Advocacy groups, industry associations, research institutes, water utilities and interstate agencies are all publishing on it, and their numbers do not agree. This section lists who is publishing, what their headline water claim is, and what they are asking for. The stance label is descriptive, not a judgment. A claim from an advocacy organization is not wrong because it comes from an advocacy organization, and a claim from industry is not right because it comes with a methodology.

Food & Water Watch

Opposition

The Urgent Case Against Data Centers, March 2026

Headline claim

By 2028 U.S. data centers could use as much as 720 billion gallons of water a year just to cool AI servers, equal to the indoor needs of 18.5 million American households. Water consumed by data centers more than tripled from 2014 to 2023.

Asking for

An immediate moratorium on data centers at federal, state and local levels; a regulatory framework for data centers and for AI; a stop to any preemption of local control; and an end to all federal, state and local subsidies for AI data centers.

The most detailed and most heavily cited case for a halt. It organized the July 2026 letter from more than 100 groups asking Governor Hochul to sign New York's moratorium.

foodandwaterwatch.org

Greenpeace USA

Opposition

Campaign against AI infrastructure buildout, 2025 to 2026

Headline claim

17.4 billion gallons of water were used to cool U.S. data centers, enough to fill more than 26,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Greenpeace Germany's 2025 analysis warns AI data center electricity demand could be eleven times higher in 2030 than in 2023 without government intervention.

Asking for

Government intervention on AI energy and water demand, and an end to ratepayer subsidy of the buildout.

Uses the same 17.4 billion gallon LBNL figure that industry cites, which makes it one of the few numbers both sides accept. Ran a billboard truck at NVIDIA's GTC conference in March 2026.

greenpeace.org

Sierra Club

Opposition

Data Centers: Local Government Resources

Headline claim

Maintains a resource hub directing local governments on how to evaluate and condition data center proposals.

Asking for

Local conditions on approval, and signatory to the coalition letter supporting New York's moratorium.

The Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter and the national organization both appear among signatories to the multi-group moratorium letters.

sierraclub.org

Data Center Watch

Research

Q1 2026 report

Headline claim

At least 75 data center projects worth about $130 billion were blocked or delayed nationwide from January through March 2026, the most in any three-month period since tracking began in 2023, and equal to the whole of 2025. Active opposition groups more than doubled to 833 across 49 states. Statewide moratorium proposals were introduced in 14 states in the quarter, and more than 300 state-level data center bills were filed in the first six weeks of 2026.

Asking for

None. Tracks and quantifies opposition rather than advocating.

Water is one of four named concern categories, alongside energy, land use and ratepayer impact. Project-level detail sits behind a paid tier, so the public figures cannot be independently recomputed.

datacenterwatch.org

Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting

Crowdsourced

Community reporting map, launched late May 2026

Headline claim

More than 9,200 community reports across 50 states, 116 active local moratoria counted as of June 2026, and more than $286 billion of investment recorded as blocked by community opposition since 2025.

Asking for

Community reporting, local organizing, and legislative transparency.

Self-reported and unverified by design. A report records that a resident is concerned, not that a facility exists or uses the water attributed to it. Snopes confirmed the project is authentic; individual entries are not audited.

Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Industry-aligned

The Data Center Water Problem Is Soluble, July 6, 2026

Headline claim

Direct data center water consumption was 17.4 billion gallons in 2023, less than 1% of total U.S. water consumption, against 211 billion gallons consumed indirectly at power plants, roughly twelve times the direct figure. Indirect intensity varies by generation mix, from about 2.1 gallons per kilowatt-hour in the hydropower-heavy Pacific Northwest to about 0.13 in solar-heavy California.

Asking for

State-led governance rather than federal mandates: mandatory standardized disclosure above 1 MW, watershed-based review with performance standards rather than technology mandates, joint water and energy review, and a federal role limited to funding metrics, procurement and research. Explicitly rejects national water mandates and federal preemption of state water law.

The most complete policy architecture published by any party. Also notes that over 200 state data center bills were introduced in 2025 with more than 40 enacted, and that over $130 billion in projects were delayed or abandoned in Q1 2026.

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

American Water Works Association

Water utilities

Cooling the Cloud: Water Utilities in a Data Driven World, October 28, 2025

Headline claim

Direct data center water use is approximately 2% of total U.S. water consumption. Utilities are sometimes barred from releasing consumption data because of nondisclosure agreements with operators.

Asking for

Better data and clearer contractual terms between utilities and operators.

The source the Congressional Research Service relies on for the 2% figure. The nondisclosure finding is the evidentiary basis for Georgia SB 421 and the disclosure bills generally.

awwa.org

Congressional Research Service

Nonpartisan agency

Data Centers and Water: Frequently Asked Questions, R49057, July 31, 2026

Headline claim

Public water systems supply an estimated 97% of the water provided to U.S. data centers. Congress has generally deferred to state primacy in intrastate water allocation, so state law largely governs access to freshwater. Federal hooks are Clean Water Act permits for wastewater, stormwater and dredge or fill discharges.

Asking for

None. Written for Members of Congress, not for advocacy.

The single most useful document in this subject and the source of the federal bill inventory in this tracker. Coordinated by Peter Folger and Elena H. Humphreys with five other CRS specialists.

U.S. Congress

Circle of Blue

Journalism and research

Great Lakes States Face a Data Center Governance Gap, 2026

Headline claim

More than 220 data center facilities are still planned across the Great Lakes basin, and the eight Great Lakes states have become one of the country's data center epicenters, while no state in the region can say precisely how much water the facilities take.

Asking for

Closing the measurement gap at state level.

Also published playbooks for residents and legislators, and reporting on the first data center-only utility in the United States.

circleofblue.org

Alliance for the Great Lakes

Regional advocacy

A Finite Resource: Managing the Growing Water Needs, August 2025

Headline claim

Growing demand from data centers and industry could stress Great Lakes water, and the most immediate problem is that no one knows exactly how much water the facilities take.

Asking for

Basin-wide accounting of large industrial withdrawals.

Frames the Great Lakes Compact as governing diversion out of the basin while leaving in-basin industrial demand comparatively lightly tracked.

greatlakes.org

Environmental Law Institute

Legal research

Data Centers and Water Fact Sheet, January 2026

Headline claim

Published a fact sheet on the legal and regulatory frameworks governing data center water.

Asking for

None stated.

Listed because it is a primary legal reference in this field. The document returned an access error to automated retrieval and has not yet been read into this tracker.

eli.org

MultiState

Policy tracking

State Data Center Water Usage Legislation Gains Momentum, March 3, 2026

Headline claim

Tracks state data center water bills across California, Iowa, Michigan, South Carolina, Kansas, Virginia and Georgia, and reports that more than 60 bills addressing data center water use were introduced across 2025 and 2026.

Asking for

None. Commercial legislative tracking.

The most reliable running index of state bill numbers and status, and the backbone of the state layer in this tracker.

MultiState

Susquehanna River Basin Commission

Interstate agency

Data Centers & Water Use regulatory page

Headline claim

Only one hyperscale data center permit had been issued in the basin as of early 2026. Developers increasingly source from existing public water supplies, which avoids a withdrawal approval because the volume already sits under the public supplier's approval.

Asking for

None. Regulates withdrawal and consumptive use across New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

One of the few agencies anywhere publishing plainly about the loophole in its own regime.

srbc.gov

Ceres

Investor advocacy

Water Behind the Watts: The Hidden Risk of Powering Data Centers, August 2026

Headline claim

Data centers in seven states depend on roughly 3.4 trillion gallons of freshwater annually for electricity, around 12 times the annual water use of Los Angeles, Phoenix and Washington D.C. combined, with 66% of water-using generation in areas of medium-high to extremely high water stress.

Asking for

Data center companies should assess and disclose water embedded in purchased electricity; power producers should disclose plant-level withdrawals, consumption and sources; policymakers should require standardized reporting on both direct and embedded water use.

The headline is a withdrawal figure that includes hydropower, a methodological choice the report states in its fine print. Roughly 78% of the total is water passing through dam turbines and returned to the source, by the report's own account, and the U.S. Geological Survey classifies hydropower as instream use and has excluded it from its water-use compilations since 2000. The claim checks below reconcile the figure against the consumption benchmark the report itself cites.

ceres.org

Data Center Coalition

Industry association

State policy testimony, 2025 to 2026

Headline claim

Reporting requirements aimed at one industry risk penalizing that industry unfairly relative to other large water users.

Asking for

Against sector-specific water reporting mandates.

Represented in state hearings by Dan Diorio, Vice President for State Policy. The strongest version of this argument is that a water rule keyed to volume rather than to sector would be harder to game and harder to challenge.

E&E News

Operators

What the companies have published

Every large operator has now published a water position, and all four of the biggest have pledged to be water positive by 2030. Water positive is a replenishment accounting claim, not a consumption claim: it means funding projects that return water to watersheds, which may not be the watersheds the facilities draw from. Both figures are given below where published, because a company can be water positive on paper and still be the largest single draw on a specific local system.

Microsoft Pledge Water positive by 2030 NASDAQ:MSFT

What the company claims

States it achieved water positivity across operations in FY2025, five years early, replenishing more water than it withdrew globally.

What is measured

Fleet WUE reduced from 2.3 to 0.27 liters per kilowatt-hour across its owned fleet in 2025, a near-90% improvement since the early 2000s. All data centers designed from August 2024 forward use closed-loop cooling, with first deployments in Phoenix and Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, avoiding more than 125 million liters per year per facility.

esgdive.com

Amazon Web Services Pledge Water positive by 2030 · Amazon.com, Inc. NASDAQ:AMZN

What the company claims

About 75% of the way to the goal, with more than 50 replenishment projects returning more than 5.8 billion gallons annually.

What is measured

Data centers withdrew 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025. Fleet WUE of 0.19 liters per kilowatt-hour. Cut water consumption in Northern Virginia, its largest data center region, by 42% in the past year.

trellis.net

Google Pledge Water positive by 2030 · Alphabet Inc. NASDAQ:GOOGL

What the company claims

More than 165 projects underway that will replenish more than 19 billion gallons of water annually by 2030.

What is measured

Fleet WUE of 0.20 liters per kilowatt-hour. One air-cooled Texas facility used 10,000 gallons across all of 2024 while an older Iowa facility used 1.3 billion gallons in the same year. As of 2024, 21% of water used in Google data centers was discharged, with the remainder lost to evaporation or sent to sewer.

Google

Meta Pledge Water positive by 2030 · Meta Platforms, Inc. NASDAQ:META

What the company claims

Water positive commitment across operations.

What is measured

Recent buildings report WUE of 0.20 liters per kilowatt-hour. The Newton County, Georgia facility is reported to consume about 500,000 gallons per day, roughly 10% of that county's total water use.

Meta

Oracle Pledge Closed-loop design standard NYSE:ORCL

What the company claims

New AI data centers in New Mexico, Michigan, Texas and Wisconsin use direct-to-chip closed-loop non-evaporative cooling.

What is measured

The Abilene, Texas campus took roughly a one-million-gallon initial fill followed by periodic maintenance top-ups. Two of eight buildings were operational in early 2026.

SAVRN

xAI Pledge Aquifer offset via recycling · Wholly owned by SpaceX since February 2026 PRIVATE

What the company claims

The Colossus Water Recycling Facility, an approximately $80 million plant with xAI, the Tennessee Valley Authority and Nucor Steel, would process up to 13 million gallons of wastewater daily and eliminate the need to draw from the Memphis Aquifer, with a stated goal of reducing aquifer strain by 9%.

What is measured

Reported as awaiting permits and funding. The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation stated it had not received a permit application for the facility. Recorded as a commitment, not a completed mitigation. Ownership note: SpaceX acquired xAI in an all-stock transaction that closed in February 2026, making it a wholly owned subsidiary. SpaceX is itself privately held, so neither entity carries a public listing.

Local 24 Memphis

Citizen signal

What communities are reporting

Crowdsourced platforms are now the largest single record of local objection to data center development, and they are the reason many of the ordinances above exist. They are also self-reported and unverified by design. Everything in this section is recorded as reported by the platform, with the platform named. None of it is treated as a measured quantity, and none of it is mixed into the ledger above.

Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting

Launched Late May 2026

Reported by the platform

9,200+community reports submitted, spanning 50 states
116active local moratoria counted by the platform as of June 2026
19%of reports citing secrecy: nondisclosure agreements, closed meetings, undisclosed terms
$286B+of investment the platform records as blocked by community opposition since 2025

Just over 3,000 reports by June 2, more than 5,000 by June 10, and 8,200 within weeks of launch. Water use for cooling ranks among the most commonly reported concerns, alongside electricity consumption, noise, strain on local infrastructure and electronic waste. The platform names Florida SB 484 and South Dakota SB 135 among tracked water measures, and logs a Mercer County petition over a proposed facility's projected 110 million gallons per year.

How to read this Self-reported and unverified. A report records that a resident is concerned about a facility, not that the facility exists, is permitted, or uses the water attributed to it. Authenticity of the project itself has been confirmed by Snopes; the individual entries have not been independently audited.

Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting Snopes

“Large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day, equivalent to a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people.”

Environmental and Energy Study Institute, widely circulated in coverage of the Brockovich map

This describes the upper bound of a large evaporatively cooled facility, not a typical one. Utility metering in Fairfax and Prince William Counties, Virginia, the densest data center market in the United States, reports average daily use of roughly 18,000 to 38,000 gallons per building with peak days approaching 88,000. The gap between the two figures is roughly two orders of magnitude, and it is entirely explained by cooling architecture and facility scale.

Center for Secure Water, University of Illinois

“A 100 MW data center consumes about as much water per day as 2,600 households.”

International Energy Agency, Energy and AI, April 2025

Direct consumption only, averaged across cooling strategies. The IEA splits total data center water use 60% indirect at power plants and 40% direct, so the combined figure is equivalent to about 6,500 households. This is the cleanest household-scale comparison available because it states its basis.

International Energy Agency

“U.S. data centers consume nearly 450 million gallons of water daily and more than 160 billion gallons annually.”

Circulated in coverage of the Brockovich map

This figure sits far above Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's measured 17.4 billion gallons of direct consumption for 2023, and far below the 211 billion gallons LBNL attributes to indirect consumption at power plants. It appears to be a partial blend of the two. When a water number for data centers is quoted without saying whether it is direct or indirect, withdrawal or consumption, it cannot be checked and should not be used.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Claim checks

14 circulating claims, checked

Each claim below is stated as its author states it, attributed, and set against what it can be reconciled with. A check is not a rebuttal. Three of these claims hold exactly, and one of them comes from the report calling for a national moratorium.

Conflicts Conflicts with the federal projection

“By 2028, U.S. data centers could use as many as 720 billion gallons of water a year just to cool AI servers, equal to the indoor needs of 18.5 million households.”

Food & Water Watch, The Urgent Case Against Data Centers, March 2026

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory projects annual direct consumption rising to between 38 and 73 billion gallons by 2028. The 720 billion gallon figure is roughly ten times LBNL's high case for direct cooling. It is close in magnitude to a combined direct-plus-indirect total, which would include water consumed at power plants rather than at the servers. Stated as cooling alone, it cannot be reconciled with the federal projection.

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Confirmed Confirmed

“Water consumed by data centers more than tripled from 2014 to 2023.”

Food & Water Watch, March 2026

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reports direct consumption of 5.6 billion gallons in 2014 and approximately 17.4 billion gallons in 2023, a factor of 3.1. The claim holds exactly, and it is drawn from the same federal dataset the industry cites.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Unresolved Unresolved

“Closed-loop systems that 'consume zero water' are clever advertising. It is not uncommon for them to lose 25% of their water volume per month.”

Food & Water Watch, March 2026

This is the sharpest technical dispute in the subject and it is not settled by any source located here. A 25% monthly loss on a one-million-gallon fill would be roughly three million gallons a year, which is a different facility from the one implied by 'filled once and recirculated.' Operators publish fleet WUE figures rather than makeup-water volumes, and makeup water is exactly the quantity that would resolve it. San Angelo's ordinance is the only instrument located that would produce the answer, because it caps the fill and requires a separate meter and written notice of any exceedance.

foodandwaterwatch.org

Depends Depends on the grid

“Electricity generation accounts for around 71% of a data center's water footprint.”

Food & Water Watch, March 2026

Three credible figures exist and they are all defensible because they measure different fleets on different grids. The International Energy Agency splits total data center water 60% indirect and 40% direct. Food & Water Watch says about 71% indirect. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's 17.4 billion direct against 211 billion indirect implies about 92%. The spread is real: indirect intensity runs from about 2.1 gallons per kilowatt-hour in the Pacific Northwest to about 0.13 in California. The share is a property of the grid a facility sits on, not a constant.

International Energy Agency

Confirmed Confirmed

“A federal report estimated that in 2023, through power generation alone, U.S. data centers indirectly consumed over 200 billion gallons of water.”

Food & Water Watch, March 2026

Matches the 211 billion gallon indirect figure attributed to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Advocacy and industry sources agree on this number, and it is the largest single quantity in the subject.

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Depends Depends on the definition

“Around two-thirds of U.S. data centers built since 2022 are in water-stressed regions.”

Food & Water Watch, March 2026, and a parallel Guardian analysis finding roughly two-thirds of planned facilities in areas that saw drought in the past year

A separate framing puts almost a third of U.S. data centers in areas of high or extremely high water stress, covering parts of Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and California. The two-thirds and one-third figures are not contradictory: one counts recent drought exposure, the other counts a standing water stress classification. Neither is meaningful without naming which index and which threshold, and most citations of both omit that.

grist.org

Depends Upper bound, not typical

“Large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day, equivalent to a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people.”

Environmental and Energy Study Institute, widely circulated in coverage of the Brockovich map

This is the ceiling for a large evaporatively cooled facility, not a typical figure. Utility metering in Fairfax and Prince William Counties, Virginia, the densest data center market in the country, reports average daily use of roughly 18,000 to 38,000 gallons per building with peak days approaching 88,000. The gap is about two orders of magnitude and it is explained by cooling architecture and facility scale.

Center for Secure Water, University of Illinois

Confirmed Sound, and states its basis

“A 100 MW data center consumes about as much water per day as 2,600 households.”

International Energy Agency, Energy and AI, April 2025

Direct consumption only, averaged across cooling strategies. The IEA splits total use 60% indirect and 40% direct, so the combined figure is about 6,500 households. This is the cleanest household-scale comparison available precisely because it says which boundary it is drawing.

International Energy Agency

Conflicts Reconciles with neither figure

“U.S. data centers consume nearly 450 million gallons of water daily and more than 160 billion gallons annually.”

Circulated in coverage of the Brockovich map

This sits far above Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's measured 17.4 billion gallons of direct consumption for 2023 and far below the 211 billion gallons attributed to indirect consumption. It appears to be a partial blend of the two. A water number quoted without saying whether it is direct or indirect, withdrawal or consumption, cannot be checked and should not be used.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Depends The volume is not the mechanism

“Meta's Newton County, Georgia facility consumes about 500,000 gallons per day, roughly 10% of the county's total water use, and county water rates will rise 33% from 2025 to 2027.”

Reported across national and local coverage of the Newton County case

The reported harm in Newton County is dry residential wells, sediment and damaged appliances, which is a groundwater and construction-impact story rather than a cooling-consumption story. Both can be true at once, and the distinction matters for policy: a closed-loop cooling mandate, the most common remedy in this tracker, would not have prevented what residents reported. The county's projected 2030 water deficit and the rate increase are the durable findings.

pressdemocrat.com

Conflicts A withdrawal-plus-instream figure compared against municipal use

“Data centers in seven states depend on roughly 3.4 trillion gallons of freshwater annually for electricity, around 12 times the annual water use of Los Angeles, Phoenix and Washington D.C. combined.”

Ceres, Water Behind the Watts, August 2026

The figure counts withdrawals, not consumption, and includes hydropower, both stated in the report's methodology note. By the report's own account roughly 78% of the volume is water passing through dam turbines and returned to the source, and its own guidance source, WRI's 2020 embedded-water paper, warns that hydropower factors are orders of magnitude larger than other types and likely to skew regional averages. The U.S. Geological Survey classifies hydropower as instream use and has excluded it from water-use compilations since 2000. The same report cites Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's estimate of 211 billion gallons of indirect consumption for all U.S. data centers in 2023; the study area holds about half the national fleet, so the headline runs roughly 33 times the consumption benchmark the report itself carries, and the comparison to city water supplies sets a returned-to-source volume against delivered municipal supply.

ceres.org

Depends An artifact of counting turbine flow

“California withdrew more water for energy generation than any other state, due to its use of hydroelectric power.”

Ceres, Water Behind the Watts, August 2026

By the report's own Figure 4, California's plant water splits 37,637 billion gallons of hydropower against 308 billion of thermal: 99.2% of the state's figure is river water passing through turbines. Under the consumption lens, or under USGS accounting which excludes instream hydropower entirely, California is not the leading state. The underlying reliability point is real and separately sourced: PG&E's 2022 resource plan projects 15% to 21% lower hydroelectric generation, and drought does curtail hydro output. Reservoir dependence is a supply-reliability risk, not a withdrawal of the volume implied.

ceres.org

Depends Legitimate for reliability, not for consumptive strain

“66% of the electricity generated using water came from areas facing medium-high to extremely high water stress.”

Ceres, Water Behind the Watts, August 2026

Locating generation in a stressed basin is a genuine supply-reliability exposure, and overlaying WRI Aqueduct stress data with plant locations is sound method. But presence in a stressed basin is not a consumptive draw on it: once-through plants return most of what they withdraw and hydropower returns its turbine flow, so the share of generation exposed to stress does not measure strain on the water supplies residents depend on, which is the executive summary's framing. Only 194 of the 1,434 plants in the analysis reported actual water data; the rest are modeled from national-average intensity factors, a limitation the appendix states.

ceres.org

Depends A replenishment claim, not a consumption claim

“Microsoft has achieved water positivity across its data center operations, five years ahead of its 2030 goal.”

Microsoft, FY2025 reporting

Water positive means funding projects that return more water to watersheds than the company withdrew globally. It is an accounting position across a portfolio, and the replenishment need not occur in the basins the facilities draw from. The consumption figure and the replenishment figure are different quantities and both should be read. The measured claim alongside it, fleet WUE falling from 2.3 to 0.27 liters per kilowatt-hour, is the one that describes the facilities.

datacenterdynamics.com

The weekly refresh

20 sources on a schedule

Nobody can hand-check three thousand counties every week. What is maintainable is a registry of the places that report county and city activity, polled on a schedule, diffed against the last run, with anything new surfaced as a lead. A lead is not a fact. Nothing reaches the table above without a primary source establishing what the instrument requires.

Sources that refuse automated requests are not worked around. They run through an official API where one exists, and onto a dated manual checklist where one does not.

Federal

Congress.gov API, data center water bills New bills and status changes in the 119th Congress. Federal layer of the tracker. The public congress.gov site refuses automated requests; the official API is the supported path and the key is free from api.data.gov.
Weekly Official API
Congressional Research Service, R49057 revisions Reissues of the federal bill inventory. The compilation this tracker's federal layer is built on. Fetch the PDF and extract Table A-1; the HTML product page refuses automated requests.
Monthly Manual check
USGS Water Data APIs Machine-readable national water data. The denominator layer.
Continuous Polled
USGS county-level water use compilation (state ledger spine) The 2015 county-level release that every state ledger on this page is built from. Watch for the completed 2020 compilation: USGS has released it in phases and it does not yet cover all categories, so it cannot replace 2015 until it does.
Annual Polled
USGS Water Use Data for the Nation County and state withdrawal and consumptive use, compiled on five-year circular cycles.
Annual Polled
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory data center energy and water reporting The direct and indirect consumption anchors: 17.4B gallons direct, 211B indirect, 38 to 73B projected for 2028. Any revision changes the hero figure and several claim checks.
Annual Manual check
Federal Register, river basin commission actions SRBC and DRBC docket actions, including data center withdrawal and consumptive use approvals.
Weekly Polled

Regional

Susquehanna River Basin Commission, data centers Data center dockets across NY, PA and MD, plus hearing and commission action dates.
Monthly Polled
Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin Basin-scale demand assessment for MD, VA, WV, PA and DC.
Quarterly Polled
Alliance for the Great Lakes water use reporting Great Lakes basin industrial withdrawal analysis across the eight compact states.
Quarterly Manual check

State

MultiState data center policy tracking State bill numbers and status across all fifty states. Backbone of the state layer.
Weekly Polled
LegiScan API, state bill text and status Full bill text and status for state measures across all fifty states, machine-readable. The public site refuses automated requests; the API is the supported path.
Weekly Official API
Virginia waterworks monthly sales reporting From January 2027, the first routine utility reporting anywhere that breaks out data center water as its own category.
Monthly Polled

Local

Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting Community reports and tracked local measures across 50 states. Leads, not facts. Every lead requires a primary source before it enters the tracker.
Weekly Polled
Data Center Watch quarterly reports Blocked and delayed project counts, opposition group counts, and state moratorium proposal counts.
Quarterly Polled
Food & Water Watch data center campaign Coalition letters, state campaign launches, and the running case for a moratorium.
Weekly Polled
Sierra Club local government data center resources Model conditions and local government guidance as it is published.
Monthly Polled
Circle of Blue, Great Lakes and water-energy desk Reported state and local water governance developments, strongest in the Great Lakes states.
Weekly Polled

Operator

Hyperscaler sustainability reporting Fleet WUE, withdrawal volumes and replenishment claims from Microsoft, AWS, Google and Meta. Per-facility disclosure is the metric to watch for.
Annual Polled
Greenpeace USA data center campaign Campaign actions and published analysis on AI infrastructure water and energy.
Weekly Polled

Forward

Six levers that would settle this

01

Report consumption, not withdrawal

Almost every disclosure bill in this tracker asks for the intake figure. Illinois asks for intake and discharge, and the difference between those two numbers is the only one that describes what the facility actually took. A reporting regime built on withdrawal produces a large number that means nothing.

State legislatures drafting disclosure bills

02

Standardize the metric before mandating the report

Water use effectiveness is defined as facility water consumption divided by IT electricity demand, which excludes the indirect consumption that is twelve times larger. H.R. 9372 would have NIST develop the measurement standards. Every state mandate written before that standard exists will collect numbers that cannot be compared across jurisdictions.

NIST, DOE, state agencies

03

Condition approvals on architecture, not on promises

San Angelo requires a closed loop, caps the initial fill at 8 gallons per square foot, requires a separate meter, and requires written notice of any exceedance within five business days. That is an enforceable specification. An ordinance that requires a facility to be water-efficient without defining the term is not.

City councils and county commissions

04

Separate the source question from the volume question

Reclaimed and recycled water does not reduce consumption; it moves the draw off the drinking water system. Both matter, and conflating them lets a facility claim a water reduction it has not made. Florida's statute requires reclaimed water where feasible without defining who determines feasibility.

Permitting authorities

05

Follow the water to the power plant

Indirect consumption is roughly twelve times direct consumption, and it varies enormously by generation mix: about 2.1 gallons per kilowatt-hour in the hydropower-heavy Pacific Northwest against about 0.13 in solar-heavy California. A facility can hold a near-zero WUE and still carry a large water footprint through its power purchase.

State energy offices, utility commissions and water authorities jointly

06

Close the counties with no meter at all

The Texas Water Development Board has stated it cannot track groundwater pumping by data centers in counties without a groundwater conservation district, which covers more than half of Texas counties. Louisiana registers groundwater use only above 50,000 gallons a day. No disclosure statute reaches a withdrawal nobody is required to measure.

State water agencies and groundwater districts

Method

How this file is built

Inclusion

  • An entry is included when a primary or named secondary source establishes that the instrument exists and states what it requires. Entries without a source are dropped, not softened.
  • Federal entries are compiled from Congressional Research Service report R49057, Data Centers and Water: Frequently Asked Questions, July 31, 2026, current as of July 30, 2026.
  • Crowdsourced platform counts are recorded as reported by the platform and attributed. They are never treated as measured quantities and never enter the ledger.

Units

  • Consumption means water withdrawn and permanently removed from its source. Withdrawal means water taken, most of which is often returned. Application means irrigation delivered. Each ledger row carries its basis.
  • Water use effectiveness is facility water consumption divided by IT electricity demand. It measures the building only. It does not include the water consumed generating the electricity, which is roughly twelve times larger.

Refresh

  • A registry of 20 sources is polled on each source's own cadence. Content is fingerprinted with markup and volatile page furniture stripped out, so a rotating session token or a rendered timestamp does not fake a change every week.
  • A source that changed produces a lead, not an entry. Every lead needs a primary source establishing what the instrument requires before it reaches the table.
  • A measure added this week counts as new only when the measure's own date falls in the current month. Everything else publishes as newly located from an earlier period. Conflating a backfill with this week's news destroys the changelog the first time somebody checks a date.
  • The dataset merges and never replaces. A run that would shrink the measure count below the recorded floor aborts instead of publishing.
  • Corrections are published rather than quietly edited. The 49 billion gallon revision at the top of this page is the reason.

Sources

218 primary sources

Every citation on this page, in one place, across 148 organizations.

Frequently asked questions

How much water do data centers actually use?
U.S. data centers directly consumed approximately 17.4 billion gallons of water in 2023 for cooling, up from 5.6 billion in 2014, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. A further 211 billion gallons were consumed indirectly at the power plants that generate their electricity, roughly twelve times the direct figure. The Congressional Research Service puts direct data center water use at approximately 2% of total U.S. water consumption.
Which states regulate data center water use?
Florida and South Dakota have enacted statutes with water provisions, Virginia has a waterworks reporting regulation taking effect January 2027, and New York has imposed the first statewide moratorium on new hyperscale facilities. Bills are live in California, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Kansas, South Carolina, Georgia, Utah, Ohio and Wisconsin. Measures in California, New Jersey and Virginia passed their legislatures and were vetoed. The map and the fifty-state grid on this page show the current position for every state.
Do data centers use drinking water?
Mostly yes. Public water systems are estimated to supply about 97% of the water provided to U.S. data centers, according to the Congressional Research Service. That is why the dispute is usually about municipal capacity rather than private wells, and why ordinances in Tucson, San Angelo and Columbia County restrict potable water for cooling or bar wells outright.
What is water usage effectiveness, or WUE?
WUE is a facility's water consumption divided by the electricity demand of its IT equipment, measured in liters per kilowatt-hour. The industry average baseline is about 1.8. Reported hyperscaler fleets run between 0.19 and 0.27. WUE measures the building only: it excludes the water consumed generating the electricity, which is roughly twelve times larger.
Is there a federal law on data center water?
One. Section 1531 of the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act requires the Defense Department to estimate water use for data centers on military installations. Twenty-two further bills in the 119th Congress touch data center water and all remain in committee. Congress has generally deferred to state primacy over intrastate water allocation, so the binding rules are being written in state capitols and city halls.
How does data center water use compare with golf courses or farming?
U.S. golf facilities applied roughly 1.63 million acre-feet, about 531 billion gallons, in 2024 according to the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, against 17.4 billion gallons of direct data center consumption in 2023. Those are different bases, applied irrigation against consumption, so they are not strictly interchangeable. The fifty-state ledger on this page uses one federal source with one taxonomy so categories within a state are comparable.